October 27, 2011 at 7:32 am
· Filed under Business Strategy
This blog post could have taken the form of an anecdotal reference on the horror stories from businesses using/used group coupons and/or YellowPages as part of their online marketing strategy.
But what's the point of anecdotes when you have evidence?
Tough stories are emerging from businesses who are literally being crippled by bad decisions on marketing opportunities particularly with the group coupon craze. Here's why. Read the rest of this entry »
October 26, 2011 at 12:42 pm
· Filed under Web
It's nothing new, juggernaut company protecting their identity against local mom and pop outfit. I for one am no surprised when the likes of Apple runs roughshod over hapless small businesses. For all the 'good' Apple has brought to the tech industry, they cripple many others in the process.
Here's a quick test on branding (although it's not a perfect test given the fact I've already mentioned Apple). Take a look at this picture after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
October 19, 2011 at 1:42 pm
· Filed under Web
An interesting ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada that could've impacted the way you blog. The case was between Wayne Crookes, President and sole shareholder of West Coast Title Search and former Green Party Campaign manager, and blogger Jon Newton. The suit challenged that hyperlinks from Newton's blog about the Green's to another website with actual content that allegedly defamed the Party. Crookes argued that articles online with links to the content represented a “smear campaign” against him and other members of the Green Party of Canada.
How does the ruling impact your blogging?
Read the rest of this entry »
October 17, 2011 at 7:20 am
· Filed under Business Strategy
There's an interesting story about eBay (or is it Skype?) that details an organization that has the best of both worlds: decentralized and centralized organizational structure. Not too many companies operate in this fashion. Decentralized leadership permits the opportunity for more people (workers) to yield more power in decision making. Centralized models are your typical top down CEO to manager to manager to manager to manager to you.
Some of the best lead organizations try not to settle in a particular structure for too long, and adapt to their need and size rapidly (or as fast as they can handle change). Generally speaking top down forms of organizational structure tend to be more inefficient. Conversely, purely decentralized models don't get anything done.
Case in point: OWS. Read the rest of this entry »
September 27, 2011 at 7:26 am
· Filed under SEO
Google has used the bulk of 2011 to roll out targeted efforts to reward high quality content on websites, but not only content, acknowledgment for original authors as well. Before the changes it was easy for everybody and their grandma could rip off content and reap some form of benefit without fear of Google reprisal (i.e. Huffington Post).
The algorithmic adjustment dubbed the 'Panda update' severely penalized websites that were considered 'thin' content websites. Some new tools to help identify high quality websites include new metadata tags. In conjunction with their rel=canonical metadata tag, Google is now recognizing the new 'standout' metadata tag. Here's what you need to know.
Read the rest of this entry »
September 14, 2011 at 9:59 am
· Filed under Social Media
An integrated analytics tool will roll out for Twitter users in the coming weeks. The Twitter Web Analytics will permit users:
- Understand how much your website content is being shared across the Twitter network
- See the amount of traffic Twitter sends to your site
- Measure the effectiveness of your Tweet Button integration
Read the rest of this entry »
July 20, 2011 at 10:39 am
· Filed under Social Media
After their initial IPO some more good news from Linkedin as they surpassed the quickly fading debacle that is now MySpace. Linkedin is now a distant second when it comes to social websites with just under 34 million June visitors.
Twitter is sitting fourth but is still pulling in monthly gains, they also sit second in terms of total search traffic.
Read the rest of this entry »
July 11, 2011 at 12:59 pm
· Filed under SEO News
Market watchers will know that bad news usually comes out on Friday afternoon. Bad news for the SEO world came from Yahoo Search on Friday afternoon confirming the death of Yahoo Site Explorer (YSE).
YSE was kind of like an early version of GWT (Google Webmaster Tools) with one very notable difference: YSE provided competitor link information on incoming web links, the only major search engine to reveal that kind of information publicly. Read the rest of this entry »
