feed hat blog

The way people talk, you’d think there are like four customers in the world. Maaaaybe five if you look around really hard — but that’s about it.

So whatever you do, if you’re lucky enough to have one of those customers, you’d better not do anything that minimizes the income you receive from them.

You’d certainly better not share them. You’d better cut your expenses to the bone on the back end, and hey . . . if you know that a competitor is courting one of the other three or four customers? Well, then you’d better get over there and work on stealing them away.

Right now, you’re rolling your eyes at this dumb picture I’m painting. But just for fun — just to see if I’m totally off base — ask yourself the following:

• Are you willing to partner with someone if it means that you’ll make less profit per customer, but have access to more customers?
• Are you willing to pay handsomely for referrals — 50% or more in some cases?
• Would you be willing to share your business with a competitor who does the same basic thing as you do?

If the answer to any of the above is no, then you’re suffering from a scarcity mindset.

You don’t really believe there are a lot of fish in the sea. You believe there are only a few fish. Or, maybe there are more fish way out deep, but in order to get to them, you’ll need to charter a boat, which means trusting some skeevy boat captain. And what happens when you get into a boat with someone who you can’t trust? You get whacked while baiting your hook, like Fredo in The Godfather.

I’m going to suggest getting over that perception.

There are a LOT of fish in the sea. And the sooner you learn to work with other people to help you get them, the faster you’re going to get ahead.

Anatomy of a successful partnership

One of the things I do in my business is set up WordPress blogs for clients. Just a few months ago, I met Genuine Chris Johnson of Flat Rate Web Jobs. Now, Chris does something interesting in his business. He sets up WordPress blogs for clients.

So what did Chris and I do with this apparent conflict of interests? We teamed up, of course.

See, if you do business in the way I tell readers and consulting clients alike, you’ll soon realize that there are “your people” and there are “not your people.” And once you figure that out, you’ll see that most of your seeming competitors really aren’t competitors after all. Even if your services are the same, your people probably are not.

Yes, Chris and I both set up blogs, but our audiences are very different. Chris’s customers come mainly from the offline world and are learning the power of blogging for the first time. My customers usually already understand the internet and the blogosphere.

The way he finds and contacts clients (often including a phone call) is very different than the way I do (social networking and blogging, never using the phone). The questions and pain points that he addresses for clients (”What’s a blog, and how will it help my business?”) are different than the ones I address (”How quickly can I get my blog off of Blogger?”). His packages include a ton of training material. My customers don’t usually need much training, at least in the basics. Accordingly, our prices are fairly disparate.

Lastly, our personal strengths are different, and complementary. Chris is very good at sales and would rather that someone else handle customer service and implementation. Conversely, I don’t want to sell. I’d rather implement and do customer service.

We could pretty easily have decided that we were competitors. Chris could have kept selling his packages, and been bogged down each time with building sites, answering emails, and so on. I could have stuck solely with “my people,” and worked to sell each job I did.

But instead, the partnership has allowed each of us to make thousands of extra dollars a month.

Now, that’s a dramatic example (side note: it gets more dramatic when you realize that Chris dated my wife before I met her, a fact that caught both of us by surprise), but there are a few ways that you can increase your business through strategic partnerships that don’t necessitate seeking out apparent competitors.

Here are a few ways to start small:

1. Get a team

Or at least get an assistant. You can only do so much as one person, and insisting on holding all of the reins yourself ensures that not only will your business not grow past a certain point, but also that you’ll be stressed out and unable to take time off.

2. Start paying for referrals

A lot of people are reluctant to pay for referrals (or to start an affiliate program) because it means shrinking your profit margin.

That’s short-sighted thinking. If you offer commissions to people who send you business, those people send you more down the road.

Remember, a referral is business you would otherwise not have gotten. So be cool and kick a thank-you to the person who sent it your way. For services and tangible products, 10-20% is a good commission rate. For digital products, it should be 50% — or even more.

3. Bundle your products with other people’s products

If you sell your Widget Buster Extraordinaire for $50 and another person sells Widget Smashing Secrets for $50, consider making a deal to sell both products together for $80 and split the profits.

Yes, you’ll make $10 less each time you sell a Widget Buster. But the new Buster + Secrets offer is so much more attractive to customers that you’re almost certain to sell enough more to make up for it.

Don’t be short-sighted. Assuming your margins still support it, 50 sales at $40 is better than 25 sales at $50.

Getting beyond doing it yourself

There’s a certain romance in “going it alone,” especially for bloggers. But taking the DIY (do-it-yourself) mindset too literally just ensures that your business will never be able to grow beyond the capabilities of one person.

Trust me, other people are cool. Partnering with them is fun. And doing so is absolutely the way to accelerate your progress. So have a little faith and try it already.

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant is a website builder and consultant extraordinaire who wants everyone to know that he’s raising his rates on January 1st — so if you’d like to work with him, now’s the time. (Contact him now and he’ll even build you a free blog.) You can also follow him on Twitter, where he’s moderately amusing.

See original here: 
How Your DIY Attitude Is Keeping You Poor

That’s one of my recent tweets, inspired by seeing early reports of local businesses getting their “Favorite Place” decals from Google. It’s also inspired, I suppose, by a bit of envy … because my wife, a real estate agent, is probably not going to be honored like these other local business owners are. In fact, I doubt very many real estate agents will be honored, nor plumbers, nor any local business that attracts phone calls more than in-person store visits.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the “Favorite Places” program is a pretty smart idea on Google’s part, and as I said in this post about Google PlaceRank, I think it’s a Good Thing for local businesses to show off those decals prominently. But the problem is with…

How to Become a Favorite Place

Google’s help pages describe how to become a favorite place:

“The list was determined based on the popularity of a business’ Local Business Center listing, as determined by how many times Google users looked for more information about a business, requested driving directions to get there, and more. Google users “decided” based on their actions, and we sent the decals.”

And there’s the problem: It’s all based on how Google users interact with the Local Business Center listing. But some local businesses are very limited in that. You don’t usually need directions to:

• real estate agents
• fence installers/repair companies
• plumbers
• roofers
• construction companies
• appliance repair shops
• carpet cleaners
• janitorial services
• landscapers
• snow removal companies
• many more

People won’t click for directions for those local businesses, and they may not click on anything. They’ll just pick up the phone and place a call, and Google has no record of that (for now, at least).

A Real Estate Agent Example

As I say, I happen to know a local real estate agent pretty well and have access to her Local Business Center stats. Here’s what they look like as of an hour ago:

(Sorry for blacking out some numbers; there are other local real estate agents who read this blog and I don’t think they need to know Cari’s exact LBC stats.)

That covers May 1, 2009 (when Google began storing this data) through December 7, 2009. Cari’s LBC listing has impressions that are in 5-figures (i.e., above 10,000). The number of actions is 3-figures. But in more than six months, only four times has someone clicked for directions. Four times.

Final Thoughts

As it stands now, Google’s program is biased toward local businesses that need foot traffic to survive. Maybe a rethink on the qualifications is in order, or perhaps a separate designation for local businesses that rely on phone calls more than clicks for driving directions.

No one ever said marketing is fair, and I know the playing field is never really level … but it sure would be nice for all small businesses to have a shot at getting Google’s blessing as a “Favorite Place.”

Advertisement: WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool delivers more keywords, faster than paid tools and always 100% free. Try it today!

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Google’s Favorite Places Discriminates Against Some Local Businesses

Related posts:

1. Google PlaceRank and SEO
2. Q&A on Google Maps and Local Businesses
3. Google has the Real Estate Industry on Borrowed Time

Read the original post:
Google’s Favorite Places Discriminates Against Some Local Businesses

I just got off the phone with the one and only Andy Beal. Andy is an author, a tech-company founder and CEO, and an all-around expert of online public relations and reputation management. In his more than ten years as an Internet marketer and PR professional, Andy founded the social media monitoring solution Trackur, co-authored Radically Transparent: Monitoring & Managing Reputations Online and launched, edits and writes for MarketingPilgrim. You can follow him on Twitter, @AndyBeal.

Next week Andy will be sharing his expertise with attendees of Search Engine Strategies Chicago. But just now over the phone, Andy gave me the inside scoop on his presentations and what he’ll be talking about at the show. Transcribed for your reading enjoyment, here are six questions with Andy Beal.

1. One of the sessions you’ll be speaking on is “PR, Social Media and Search”, which will focus on integrating search and social media platforms into a PR strategy. What’s the biggest missed opportunity you’ve seen so far with regards to public relations and search and social media? What seems to give brands more trouble: proactive engagement with the community or reactive rep management issues?

I see a lot of, especially traditional public relations experts, looking at social media and search as just another distribution channel for them, and not realizing, especially with social media, that this is an opportunity for them to engage and to join a community. So a lot of their strategies will be along the lines of, “Let’s tweet our latest press release.” You know, that’s not going to get you too far if you’ve not built a community and you’re not opening a dialogue and starting a conversation surrounding the news that you’re launching.

So I think that it’s to be expected considering that we’re still in the very early stages of trying to figure out how to use social media as PR professionals. But I think that one of the things we’ll see in the future is public relations firms moving beyond simply using Twitter or Facebook or blogs as a distribution channel, and really diving in and engaging and building a community and having conversations with the company stakeholders.

I think right now what you see is a lot of companies responding to reputation management issues because they’ve not been proactive in their engagement. So you tend to see companies almost being dragged kicking and screaming into certain social media channels because they face a crisis on Twitter or a video of their employees at their pizza chain gets posted to YouTube and that kind of causes them to wake up and realize that they need to be involved in these channels.

And unfortunately they get thrown into the deep end because it’s usually a reputation crisis. Those companies then tend to realize the importance of those channels and start being proactive. And you can look at, for example, Dell as being a poster child of a company that went through a crisis and then became very proactive in social media.

I think that those companies that have gone through that trial by fire are becoming case studies for other companies and certainly for marketing professionals, PR professionals to say to their clients, to their employer, “Look, we don’t want this to happen to us. We’ve got two choices. We can wait until our reputation comes under attack and we can respond then. Or, much better is to be proactive, build a community, open up the lines of communication so that we are less likely to face a similar attack on our own reputation.”

2. You authored Radically Transparent, a book about online reputation management trends and tactics and tools for monitoring and engaging through social media. Before the Web exploded onto the scene, public relations (and business in general) followed a slightly slower pace. How has the PR community embraced the granular tracking and instant information tools like Trackur required of a professional today?

I think right now the majority of public relation firms that are using Trackur — which is our reputation monitoring tool — are using it along the lines of the traditional press clipping services that they offer their clients. And that is, they’re simply sending to their clients any instances that the client’s brand has been mentioned or a press release has been picked up, or a blogger or a journalist has written about an announcement.

And they’re using Trackur as an online version of the traditional press clipping service where — traditional PR folks will know all about this — and they send actual clippings to their client of here’s the story that ran in the Wall Street Journal. They send that to their clients on a regular basis. So they’re using Trackur merely as an accountability tool, just to demonstrate that it’s worth continuing to pay their retainer each month.

I think, though, as we move forward we’re going to see public relation firms and companies and marketing firms being a lot more intelligent with their use of social media monitoring. They’re going to start doing research to see what are the buzz terms, what are people talking about, what product features do they like, what don’t they like, and getting a better idea of how well received a particular announcement was so that they can maybe make improvements to their next product launch. And I think that we’re starting to see a few companies that are getting smart like that.

3. A highly debated topic in Internet marketing is that of “ghost” representatives on social networks. You’ll be speaking on the panel “Ghost Blogging, Tweeting, Content Production – Ethical? Does It Matter?” Can you give us a sneak peak of your views? What recommendations would you give to an organization interested in outsourcing their social media efforts?

I think that a lot of people will assume that having written a book titled Radically Transparent that my opinion’s going to be very much against ghost blogging. But the presentation that I’m giving is actually just a very practical, balanced look at the pros and the cons of ghost blogging and ghost tweeting. I still believe that the majority of companies should definitely look at being transparent with their efforts and, if possible, having their actual CEO or senior executive be the one that writes the blog post and updates the Twitter account.

But there are going to be times where that’s just not practical. I’m going to look at situations where you have a CEO that’s just not able to get in front of a computer — maybe they’re not tech savvy or maybe they’re just too busy. You’ve got the CEOs that are, really, if you put them in front of a camera or in front of a keyboard they’re kind of, dare I say, bumbling idiots. And you really don’t want them putting together the post and so it’s better that they get written for them and maybe approved by the CEO.

And then we’ll even look at the black hat side of things, or the dark side of things, and that is truly just pretending that it’s being written by somebody. And what are the risks involved with that and what could be the downfall if you’re discovered, and we’ll look at some examples. But my plan is, I’ve only got ten minutes to make a presentation so I’m going to basically open up the topic and talk about some different things, but look at it from a practical point of view.

My opinion is that I would prefer people be open and honest about this but I do realize that there are going to be many instances where you’re going to take a ghost blogging approach.

4. During the panel “Online PR: Where to Next?” you’re going to look at how social media and search will impact public relations in five years. The last five years saw quite a bit of change on that front. Do you think the next five will be as revolutionary or are the major shifts behind us?

My focus of that panel is going to be on monitoring and measurement. I’m going to take a look at the different things that have materialized over the last five years that really allow you to analyze the reach of your press release, the audience share of the influences, and really help you fine tune your PR message, and to make sure that you’re not just sending out a blast press release and hoping that you’re going to get picked up by a popular newspaper or blogger.

I look at that and then looking forward to the future, I think we are going to see technology playing a major role. We will see PR firms learning to have this dialogue, which we’ve already discussed, but I think technology is going to be just as equally important over the next five years. And we’re going to perhaps see things such as greater use of URL shorteners to make it easier for content to be distributed and tracked.

One of the things that I talk about is setting your content free. So forget the old way of hosting a press room or a media room on your site. By distributing that content to Flickr or SlideShare or YouTube you’re going to get a lot better idea of the reach of that, the popularity of it. A lot of these sites have great metrics that they’ll share with you if you post your content with them.

Then even looking at maybe the future of press releases themselves. Dynamic content you can change on the fly. So maybe multivariate testing with your press release headlines. Or perhaps you find a typo in your press release and you’re able to update it two hours after you’ve issued it and it gets updated across all of the different news wires. And then maybe even an opportunity to better track those press releases.

Who knows, we may even see performance-based pricing for press releases. Not just, here’s a flat fee, but if this press release gets picked up by X number of bloggers or gets featured in this particular news publication maybe you’ll pay on a performance basis. So there’s lots of different interesting things that we can only predict at this point, but who knows what will come in the future.

5. What should brand managers know about the reputation risks of emerging new technologies like SideWiki, Twitter Lists and tweets in SERPs? Do these formats raise any new concerns for ORM?

It is still very early days. The thing with SideWiki is that it’s still very new. Not a lot of people are familiar with it or are using it, so any reputational impact is going to be very limited at this stage, but that’s not to say that it won’t be important in the future.

Twitter Lists are useful because they’re great for helping you to identify influential Twitter users. So for example, if you know that there’s a technology writer that’s got 100,000 followers and they create a list of the technology writers that they admire and they follow, that’s a pretty good list, as a PR professional or as a marketer, to follow and to kind of dissect and to get an idea of who’s influential in the space. So those are all things that are going to empower us to really fine-tune our targeting of where we’re sending this message.

I think the biggest change for PR is going to be that it’s not just a case of, “Let’s craft a real catchy press release. Let’s send it off through our news wire. And then let’s just follow up with the most influential newspaper journalists.” I think you’re going to see that we’re going to get more granular.

And it may well be that the next time you break a story, let’s say we have a new product that we’re launching, it may be that we just give the exclusive to a particular person that has a huge following on Twitter because we know that we can reach our target audience a lot faster if we give them the scoop, as opposed to sending out a press release. So there’s a lot of interesting things to come.

6. Are there any sessions you’re looking forward to at the show? Where can people find you to chat while in Chicago?

I’m going to be busy with my own sessions, I think, so I’ve got a lot that I’m going to be doing. But for me, SES and any of these conferences are about the networking. So I’m looking forward to catching up with people, I’m looking forward to meeting new folks that are doing interesting things that I’m not personally involved with, or people that I’ve heard about that I’ve not met. So for me the networking is going to be a key thing.

I am doing a lunch thing on Tuesday. I believe they have a thing for authors and speakers where you can kind of find your favorite author or speaker and kind of sit down, have lunch and chat. So I’m hoping people will come out and find me for that. I’m happy to talk about anything from blogging to search to reputation management, or anything that comes up over lunch.

Considering how awesome it’s been having you answer all my questions, I think that’s an opportunity SES goers should definitely take advantage of. Thanks, Andy, for taking the time out for this interview. Have an awesome time in Chicago!

If you like what you read here, remember this is just a taste of what you’ll takeaway from being at the real thing. Plus, get 20 percent off the cost of the conference (good for the show and for Bruce Clay’s SEO training course Friday) with the discount code 20BCLAY.

Six Questions with Andy Beal was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO services company.

Read the original here: 
Six Questions with Andy Beal

One of my favorite posts from around the web last week came from our own Associate Editor Jon Morrow. He recorded a 20-minute video post for Problogger about how he works with speech recognition software to do all of his blogging.

I do an awful lot of writing every week, and I’ve been thinking about trying speech recognition out in order to speed up the process. But like most people, I was afraid it was going to be more trouble than it was worth to get it working.

Jon’s video made me realize how simple (and inexpensive) it will be for me to make it happen.

Because it was a pretty content-rich video, a lot of folks took a quick look and bookmarked it, thinking to come back to it when they had a little more time. So what better way to spend the Friday-after-a-holiday than eating leftover turkey sandwiches and watching a great how-to post?

(If you’re not in the States, you can re-create the effect by overeating wildly today or tonight, drinking just a little too much, pounding down four desserts, having three arguments with your extended family, and then watching the video tomorrow.)

The highlights of the video for me were:

• The quick-to-install (and cheap) piece of hardware that lets the software actually understand what you’re saying.
• Jon on video! Jon and I have spent a lot of time on the phone, so I’ve gotten to know him fairly well. Getting to hang out with him for a few minutes via video was great, he’s a fascinating guy with a lot to say. (The guy can say more with his eyebrows than most people can with a 100-item list post.)
• The one-stop resource to find the right mic and hardware for your setup.
• The live demo showing exactly how Jon uses the software to manage his business and blogs.
• The comical notion that penny-pinching Jon will ever buy a Mac.

I recommend you check it out, I found it tremendously useful:

Speech Recognition for Bloggers: The Ultimate Guide

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.

View original here: 
Does Speech Recognition Software Really Work?

On today’s episode of SEM Synergy, Bruce Clay, Inc.’s weekly podcast on WebmasterRadio.fm, I interviewed the CEO of a newly launched search engine and aggregator that seeks to bring search up to speed — at least to a pace that’s as fast as the Internet evolution.

LeapFish is a Web search aggregator that has been designed with the new Web in mind, culling content from traditional, social and real-time Web sources into a customizable interface that acts as a dashboard for the Web.

The recent public launch of LeapFish boasts a number of features that help users search and share content across popular sites, locate real-time content and create a custom search experience fitting of online life today.

Founder and CEO Ben Behrouzi was our guest and I had a chance to ask him about LeapFish and what benefits can be found in a customizable Web dashboard that integrates social, real-time and rich-media content.

As Ben explained, significant changes have come about thanks to social networking and community platforms. We can receive breaking news as it happens. Everyone has the power to be an online publisher. Rather than rankings calculated by machines, our trusted contacts, colleagues and friends act as information filters, sharing only the highest quality content that strikes a chord with like-minded friends and followers.

Add to all that the ability to feed social media content, along with traditional search and rich media, directly into a search engine or aggregator through APIs and other technologies, and it’s clear why a robust Web search and aggregation experience is the next logical development for search.

There’s no doubt that we’ve become increasingly dependent on our online social networks to provide us with breaking news, product or service recommendations, and the most worthwhile opinions and analysis. But what’s on the flip side of our info consumption?

There’s a weak link in the honor system that real-time content sharing relies upon, and this point was highlighted by last week’s tragic events at Fort Hood. In NSFW: After Fort Hood, another example of how ‘citizen journalists’ can’t handle the truth, TechCrunch blogger Paul Carr uncovered the dark side of real-time content: the lack of accuracy and the sensationalized nature of unverified reports from the scene. Carr writes:

Unsurprisingly, Moore’s coverage was quickly picked up by bloggers and mainstream media outlets alike, something that she actively encouraged by tweeting to friends that they should pass her phone number to the press so she could tell them the truth, rather than the speculative [BS] that was hitting the wires.

There was just one problem: Moore’s information was [BS] too.

While the Internet has ushered in new means of communication and commerce, the unreliable nature of word-of-mouth communication is nothing new. It’s gone by other names: gossip, rumor, hearsay. The risks of trusting flawed info are familiar and something we deal with everyday. The Internet simply magnifies the issue.

Sure, misinformation can be written off as something easily corrected down the line. But our brain power is a limited resource.

With so much information available at our fingertips today we find ourselves spending additional time and resources to consider the source of content. There are incredible technologies now available and we can decide what to engage with, but the heightened access requires us to be ever-more discerning of our information intake.

Super brain Frank Schirrmacher raises the comparison of information consumption to food intake (among other heady, enlightening ideas):

I think it’s very interesting, the concept — again, Daniel Dennett and others said it — the concept of the informavores, the human being as somebody eating information. So you can, in a way, see that the Internet and that the information overload we are faced with at this very moment has a lot to do with food chains, has a lot to do with food you take or not to take, with food which has many calories and doesn’t do you any good, and with food that is very healthy and is good for you.

When it comes to the object of our attention and brainpower, learning is a lot like eating. Culture, experience and personal taste play a big role, though through the Web and progressive technologies, the whole world is now our oyster. With increased access to the expanding Web, we have a dual opportunity to broaden our taste buds and to be picky connoisseurs. As the saying goes, you are what you eat.

Thank you to Ben Behrouzi and LeapFish for joining us on the podcast today. You can read more from Ben on his blog benbehrouzi.org and follow him on Twitter, @benbehrouzi.

More here:
Information Consumption and the Real-Time Web - SEM Synergy Extras

It looks like Google is making more small changes to how its displays local search results — but these are small changes that might have a big impact on both local businesses and the users searching for them.

Missing Phone Numbers in 7-Pack

On a number of searches I’ve done, it appears that Google has pulled phone numbers from the 7-pack display. Here’s a screenshot of an old search from Bradford PA restaurants that I’m borrowing from Mike Blumenthal for the sake of comparison:

And here’s a screenshot of that same search conducted just now. Notice that the phone number of each restaurant is gone.

It’s certainly a cleaner look for the 7-pack, but it adds another step in the process of search-find-contact. Phone calls are the lifeblood of most local businesses, and it’s now harder to find local phone numbers on Google.com searches. That’s bad both for the businesses and the customers who want to contact them.

Google asks “Is this accurate?”

The other change I’m seeing is to individual local OneBox listings. (What are we calling these? Authoritative OneBox?) Not only is the business phone number also gone from this display, but it’s been replaced with a question from Google: Is this accurate?

If you click on the question, Google asks you to confirm that something’s wrong — either the address, phone, map, or business info. is wrong. (I have no idea what happens when “Confirm” is clicked.)

This is similar to how Yahoo has allowed users to indicate bad data in local business listings since early 2007. But in Google’s case, you can only hope that they have several layers of safeguards in place to prevent the obvious spam/sabotage opportunity that this presents.

Your thoughts on these changes? Comments are open.

Advertisement: Improve your website rankings and traffic in just 15 mins/day! LotusJump will show you how to do your own professional-grade SEO. Find Out How Today!

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Google Pulls Local Phone Numbers from Search Display

Related posts:

1. Google Maps display pulls in additional links
2. Google Maps has a new Onebox Display
3. Google Maps Adds Phone Verification, Upgrades LBC

Read more here: 
Google Pulls Local Phone Numbers from Search Display

After spending the weekend camping off the grid, I have a renewed appreciation for just how competent and satisfying the mobile Web experience can be. I don’t need no high-falutin’ electricity. Keep your restroom facilities and the five-minute hike it takes to get there. Give a girl a fully charged smart phone and a connection to the Web and I’m a happy camper — literally.

As far as mobile search experiences are concerned, according to a recent study, Google’s taking home the gold among the three major search engines.

Google’s mobile search was praised in the study for being simple in user interface, succinct in content and for having a mature device detection and for automatically tailoring results based on the user’s location.

Actually, both Yahoo! and Google are location-aware, which put them on top of a young Bing mobile search that asks users to input their location. However, in the end, a full, dedicated mobile search site put Google on top of Yahoo!’s mobile search, which is integrated into Yahoo!’s general home page.

Other mobile categories judged in the study include social networks, sports and news. In overall judging, qualities that can bring one app ahead of the competition include:

• For search, Google was praised for not only detecting mobile devices, but also for tailoring results based on location info from the phone or IP address.
• Baseball news site MLB.com automatically detects each visitor’s phone-type and adapts the display and content to fit screen size and computing power.
• The ability to share content via Twitter or e-mail is seen as a plus for social network site Taptu.

Drawbacks of those mobile sites judged include:

• The New York Times and MSN were docked for putting too much info on the front page.
• The Wall Street Journal doesn’t offer SMS alerts, falling short of some mobile user’s expectations.
• Extraneous HTML and validation errors made a difference in the winner/runner-up story of Google and Yahoo!

In this first year that a site received higher than 70 of a possible 100 points in the Yankee Group’s Mobile Web Report Card, it’s clear that mobile is blowing up, and that Web developers have made strides keeping their products forward-looking and reacting to user’s preferences and the unique needs of mobile surfing.

According to Yankee Group, almost a third of phone users browse the Web from their mobile devices. There’s an eager market out there, but have you had a chance to think about your site’s place in it?

Take a cue from the high-performing mobile sites — what are they doing wrong that you are, and what are they doing right that you aren’t? Re-examine the usability of your mobile experience. Consider what capabilities might enhance your mobile site. Is it appropriate to make your mobile Web site a unique experience, keeping in mind the mobile surfing habits — like sharing through text and Twitter, and offering location-specific info?

No one’s willing to be tied to their desks anymore to find your Web site. Are you ready to serve engaged Internet users on the go?

See the rest here:
Mobile Search Showdown

A Guest Post by Pamela Wilson from WriteSmart.

When I was a second-year cadet journalist on an Australian newspaper, my chief-of-staff gave me a coveted assignment. ‘I need you to interview Australian cricket captain Allan Border for a story about daylight savings,’ he said.
 
I grabbed my pen and notebook (both sporting L-plates) and reached for the phone, but in my heart I knew the esteemed Allan Border would never speak to a cub reporter about daylight savings.
 
I made a few phone calls anyway and discovered he was playing in the Sheffield Match in South Australia at the time. I was convinced now; there was no way he was going to interrupt a cricket match to talk to me.
 
Like a dog with a month-old bone, however, I called the Adelaide Oval and was put through to a young guy in the change-rooms. ‘Sure, you can talk to Allan. Here he comes now, he’s just finished batting,’ he said.
 
Picking myself up off the floor and stifling a swear word I promised my Grade 10 teacher I would never repeat, I racked my brain for what to say. You see, I had been so convinced I wouldn’t get to speak to Allan Border that I hadn’t done a scrap of research, nor prepared a single question.
 
Had I done the research I would have known that he was 3-1/2 years into what would be a four-year Test century drought for him, and I would never, ever, ever have said what I said next. (In my defence, though, I could never have known he had literally, 30 seconds prior to taking my call, got out for a duck.)
 
Before I had time to collect my thoughts he was on the other end of the phone, ‘Hello, Allan speaking.’ My brain went numb. I said the first thing that came to my mind. “Ummmmm, how’s your batting going?”
 
The silence was spine-chilling. Finally he said, “Are you taking the p&%* out of me?” So, I had committed an atrocious faux pas and had offended the esteemed Allan Border. But he was so gracious and, in the end, I got the page three lead anyway.
 
But in that moment when one of the world’s greatest all-time cricketers swore at me, I resolved to change my work ethic and my attitude. (But let’s face it, I don’t regret it; it gave me a darn good story that I intend to repeat to anyone who’ll listen until my dying day.)
 
From that one exchange I learned the true value of preparation and planning. These days, as a writer and very eager blogger, I strictly follow the formula touted in the popular business mantra, The Five Ps. There are a number of versions of this mantra, but I like the one that says Preparation, Planning and Practice = Perfect Performance. (I also chuck in a sixth p - passion.)
 
We cannot hope to succeed in any new venture that we attempt if we are don’t plan, prepare and put in the effort to practice our new-found skills. When I first started the WriteSmart blog I was very tempted to just begin scratching away at my computer keyboard on some half-baked post idea. But Allan Border’s dismayed question popped into my head and I took a step back. I began searching respected blog sites; I read for hours about the keys to writing compelling blog content; and I trawled through successful blogs to see how those authors did it.
 
I had been a journalist for 18 years, but I wrote for newspapers, magazines and online news sites. Blogs were a whole new genre with a completely new readership. So I munched on a slice of humble pie and sought the advice and experience of those who had helped blogging evolve into a respected genre all of its own.
 
To that end, these are the top P tips I employ in my endeavours as a blogger:
 

1. Prepare

If you are new to blogging, don’t start sprinting until you have learned how to crawl, toddle and walk-without-falling-down first. Learn all that you can about how to blog well by those who are doing it successfully. You will save yourself a lot of time and, ultimately, create a better quality product from the outset. With respect to writing posts, research the topic if you are not already an expert. Google, go to a library, interview the experts.

2. Plan

Who are you blogging for? Who is your target audience? What sort of posts do you intend to write? If you don’t plan, you may soon discover there is no central theme connecting your posts. Without a central theme, your posts may be relevant to your readers only some of the time. You want your posts to be relevant to your readers all of the time so that they don’t tune out.

3. Practice

Write, write, write. It is no secret that with practice, everyone’s skills improve. As a blogger, your main tool (yes, besides YouTube) is your ability to succinctly string words together to form engaging, creative, funny, informative sentences. So, start writing, keep writing, practice writing.

Passion

If you take to the computer like a kid takes to brussel sprouts, something has to change. You need to inject into your blogging whatever it is that you do love. Perhaps you have started a blog that centres on a topic you don’t particularly like. If so, don’t chuck it in, just change it to something that will excite and engage you. Consider changing the look of your blog to a design that is more appealing to you. Set some goals you can aim for as motivators. You have got to enjoy what you are doing. If you don’t, think about ways to change it so you do.
 
So, when you next sit down to write your blog think ‘Preparation, Planning, Practice and Passion = Perfect Performance’. If you do, you greatly reduce the risk of world-class sportsmen uttering obscenities at you.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How I Offended Former Australian Cricket Captain Allan Border… and Why that Makes me a Better Blogger Today

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How I Offended Former Australian Cricket Captain Allan Border… and Why that Makes me a Better Blogger Today

Our moderator is Anne F. Kennedy, SES Advisory Board, Founding Partner and CMO, Joblr.com and Managing Partner & Founder, Beyond Ink. Our speakers are Robert Friedman, Partner, Kelley Drye & Warren, and Mark Rosenberg, Of Counsel, Sills Cummis & Gross P.C.

Anne says our speakers will put up legal jargon definitions in the presentation slides. Robert is up first. He’s going to talk about personal jurisdiction. Lawyers talk about different kinds of jurisdiction. Personal jurisdiction refers to the state in which an individual or business can be sued. A person or company cannot be sued in a particular jurisdiction if the court does not have personal jurisdiction over that person or company. There are special considerations in the electronic space.

Caveat 1: This is an area of law that’s developed since the country was formed. Therefore this is going to be a broad overview with the goal of giving you the understanding for your business.

Caveat 2: The goal is to do business and make money, so they’re not saying don’t do business. But there are risks to consider. You may decide the reward outweighs the risk.

Most states have statutes that allow a person or company outside its borders to be sued in that state. Find out what your state law is and what jurisdiction another state has over someone in another state. For example, in NY, the Long Arm Statute grants personal jurisdiction over a person or company doing business in NY or transacting business in NY and the lawsuit arises from that contact.

If you transact enough business in the state, it might be fair to have jurisdiction in that state. You also consider the due process — would the person reasonably expect to be sued in that location?

Our forefathers never considered the way business is done today. The system was created based on state borders. That invisible line acts as a barrier for jurisprudence. But with Internet commerce, the goal is knock down all the borders. Commerce is quick and widespread. So how have the courts that have grown with these laws deal with the new borderless commerce? The answer: not very well.

Web Site Jurisdiction

Chloe v. Queen Bee of Beverly Hills: Six weeks ago a court in one state considered a case that revolved around a single transaction in the state by a company outside the state. The finding was uh oh, we don’t have a way with dealing with this — we have to examine it deeper.

Companies and individuals that use interactive Web sites to do business in certain states and with residents of certain states may be sued in that state.

Key facts with a Web site jurisdiction case:

• Revenue generation
• Active vs. passive distinction
• Solicitation or targeting of a state’s residence

The Zippo Sliding Scale has been adopted by courts:

On one side of the interactivity scale is passive information. On the other side is the active site that is selling product and generating revenue. In the middle is some degree of interactivity but no sales are being made. This includes registration, blogging, free items, file sharing.

Even the most passive Web sites have some interactivity. Even tech-slow law firm sites are becoming interactive with blogs and comments and posts.

Here are some cases that illustrate Web site jurisdiction.

Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC v. CAVS USA, Inc.: Jurisdiction was found based on online orders to over 100 Tennessee customers and just 2.5 percent of products sold there. The court exercised jurisdiction.

New Angle Pet Products v. MacWillie’s Golf Products: $32.97 was spent in a state to buy a product in another state over the Internet. This was enough for jurisdiction.

Square D Company v. Scott Electric Company: This case was based on less than one percent of sales. There are quite a few others that fall in the same group. Even just a quarter of a percent (.25%) was enough in one case.

Societe des Bains de Mer v. MGM Mirage: Sales weren’t even considered. A sales drop-down menu was enough to get jurisdiction because it meant people in that state could buy from the site.

The ninth circuit of California — the highest federal court before the Supreme Court — just made a radical and controversial decision. There were two competing law sites. One site had a completely plagiarized page touting their elder law practice. The Web designer had lifted it from another client. The fact that the plagiarized firm was doing law in CA was enough to give the state jurisdiction.

Meta Tags and SEO

While Meta tags are interesting from a legal standpoint, they have less relevance to business today. Optimization has more relevance. Keyword advertising isn’t bringing as many legal cases because the plaintiff has to prove consumer confusion. Morris Material and Handling case can be looked at for an example of this case

Personal Jurisdiction in the Clouds

This is the next frontier in the business and legal side for libel, trademark, etc. The courts are grappling with how to deal with these issues.

Capitol Records, LLC v. Video Egg, Inc.: No jurisdiction based on the sheer availability of infringing products on the site. The site didn’t actually generate revenue. But the court found jurisdiction based on substantial ad sales to NY companies. A factual record showed that VideoEgg promoted the NY user base to advertisers. So despite the fact there was no revenue generation from the downloads, the ad revenue was enough.

Contrast that with a case in NY where Royalty Network sued Dish End. The court didn’t issue jurisdiction because while Dish End has big NY advertisers, there was no evidence they had promoted their NY user base to advertisers. This is a good indicator of how courts will consider jurisdiction.

IO Group, Inc. v. LaPerna: No jurisdiction where there were no sales in CA. Uploading files onto CA server and allowing one CA business to advertise on a site was not found to be enough for jurisdiction. The server location and the one advertiser was not enough of a basis for jurisdiction.

Forward Food LLC v. Next Proteins, Inc.: Jurisdiction found based on a single visit to NY, uploading of due diligence documents to a virtual data room for review in NY, and several emails sent to NY.

Chang v. Virgin Mobile USA: A phone company downloaded a Flickr user’s photo and used it on their ads. A court in Texas, where the Flickr server was located, did not find personal jurisdiction. A server isn’t enough. There needs to be some kind of targeting or proof that the company wanted to business there. With more targeted marketing happening, this could provide an easier basis for establishing jurisdiction based on audience targeting.

Mark will now talk about how to protect yourself with the court’s past decisions in mind. He asks, “Why should we care?” You may be considered to be doing business in states you never thought you were doing business in. You may need to comply with another state’s laws. Jurisdiction determines where you can get sued. You may be required to collect sales tax for customers located in other states.

State Registration Requirements

You may need to register or license your business in other states. Insurance, financial products and counseling, and real estate transactions — even if an advertiser for such businesses — you may need to register or license in the state.

You may need to register the product that you’re offering. If you don’t there could be significant penalties.

Comply with state laws:

• Disclosure requirements of disclaimers
• Product or service may be prohibited
• Age limitations
• Sales restricted to in-state sellers
• Tax issues

Where can you be sued?

• Any place personal jurisdiction exists
• Not just where you or the plaintiff reside
• Where your cease and desist letter is received

Where you get sued matters:

• Cost and convenience issues
• Laws vary from state to state — this often determines who wins or loses
• Court rules and docket speeds — each courthouse, and even each judge, can have a different speed or process

Collecting Sales Tax

New York and Rhode Island required that a sale that was affected in any way through someone in that state — for instance, if an affiliate led to the sale and resides in that state — pay that state’s sales tax. There are steps you can take to avoid doing business in a certain state.

Option 1: Nothing

This is a viable option if:

• Passive site
• Purely local site
• Don’t deal with regulated products or services
• Don’t have affiliates
• Don’t care

Odds are you’re probably safe if one or more of these apply.

Option 2: Avoid a particular state

Don’t offer product or service to residents of that state. Make it clear on your site, and really mean it. If the site blocks them (for instance, if the state isn’t in the sales drop down), the phone sales team needs to know to look for sales from these states as well.

Option 3: Choose where you want to be sued

This can be as simple as including terms in your Terms and Conditions. It’s called a forum selection clause. Something like: “Any claim sought shall be adjudicated in any state or federal court in King County, Washington, and you consent to exclusive jurisdiction and venue in such court.”

Option 4: Choose what law applies

This is approached with a choice of law clause: “By visiting Amazon.com, you agree that the laws of the state of Washington, without regard to principles of conflict of laws, will govern these Conditions of Use and any dispute of any sort that might arise between you and Amazon.”

Keep in mind that a state attorney general can still bring a case against a company with choice of law and choice of selection clauses. The clauses don’t apply to state attorney generals, just consumers.

Option 5: Stay out of court

Have an arbitration clause. This is often a quicker, cheaper way of resolving a dispute compared to litigation in court.

Terms and Conditions

It’s a best practice to make users affirmatively agree to the terms and conditions before the sale. A court will consider if there was a real agreement. Did the consumer look at the terms and agree to them. Checking the box is almost ironclad.

Affiliate Sales Tax

Avoid affiliates in states with sales tax requirements. But you may not want to cut out states like CA and NY because you’re ruling out a number of affiliates. Mark thinks that more and more states will adopt affiliate sales tax.

Cease and Desist Letters

Before you send it, think twice. You’re opening yourself up to being sued in that state. File a complaint first and then hold off on serving. Having a first-filed litigation could give you the upper hand if the person brings an action against you. Your filing will go through first.

Read the original here: 
Electronic Contacts and the Long Arm of the Law