24/7 Wall Street wrote a fascinating article today describing how Microsoft could quite easily buy its way on to far more computer screens for much less than buying Yahoo; there are powerful search engines that represent many of the Chinese, Russian and Czech viewers. It is a great short read and the economics appear to make sense. Read the article here.

At Search Engine Strategies San Jose I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend and mentor Dr. Ralph Wilson. Ralph is one of those amazing people who always seems to stay on top of his formidable workload while managing writers and his well known web site Web Marketing Today.

In this interview I asked Ralph how he keeps on top of his enormous workload while still writing ebooks and articles and as I expected he had some great tips to share. Read more…

EARLY ACCESS TIP: On September 9th, 2008 Microsoft will be officially launching its free video email solution called “Windows Live Video Messages” which is supposed to allow users to freely send secure video messages to friends simply and easily using a web cam.

According to the official Windows Live Video Messages home page this service is not available to the public until September 9th but thanks to a back door entrance courtesy of LiveSide it is in fact open to those of you who would like to give it a shot.

The idea has caught on before and with sites like EyeJot that have much less restrictive requirements than Microsoft you may want to try those over this new offering. Read more…

Poor Matt, he is always getting the brunt of the abuse when Google does something that could, even remotely, be monopolistic. Fortunately, Google Chrome, in my opinion is yet another great idea from a great company that is slightly evil but much less than most

Check out Matt’s blog for his detailed “Answers to Common Google Chrome Objections” and get the low down directly from a straight-talker; the image on the right is from a fun set of Google collector cards created by Philipp Lenssen.

PS. I forgot to mention in my previous Google Chrome post that Google has earned another star in my book for creating such a cool logo for Google Chrome! Hmm, now I just need to get my hands on a sticker for my laptop! Hint hint Google!

Google Chrome, Google’s unexpected open source web browser was announced over the Labour Day weekend and launched only a day later – it is now available for download in more than 100 countries.

Here are some excerpts from the Google Blog announcement on September 1st, 2008 “A Fresh Take on the Browser“:

“On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go” Read more…

I met up with Ralph Wilson at the Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference a couple of weeks ago and had a great time as always doing interviews. Ralph Wilson’s Web Marketing Today is one of the oldest (since 1995) most respected web marketing resources in the world and as one of Ralph’s hand-picked writers for SEO I feel very privileged to work with him.

In the following interview, Ralph and I discuss the advantages of blogging for building valuable links and reputation online.

Note: we had some trouble with the recording device so you might notice Ralph looking sternly at his camera occasionally… that was to make sure it was still recording We had to re-record parts of this interview about 4 times.

Last week’s Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose was awesome! The content was exceptional – a cut above previous conferences – and the parties were a blast. To drive all of this home I invite you to check out the photos from the conference that I posted a few minutes ago.

A number of the photos include the following SEOs that you may know: John Carcutt, Darrell Long, Matt McGee, Andy Beal, Lisa Barone, Loren Baker, Leif Nissen, David Snyder, Jeff Quipp, Jennifer Osborne, Jeremiah Andrick, Daron Babin, Chris Boggs.

There are more photos to come too but for now enjoy!

Google Dance 2008 was, as usual, a great time and I felt it was time to share the festivities with the rest of the world that can’t make it and may just be a little curious about Google’s headquarters. So here we go, welcome to Google Dance 2008:

I hope I can count on seeing you at Google Dance 2009! Just sign up for Search Engine Strategies San Jose when it comes around and in addition to learning about web marketing you will enjoy some great parties (that includes the spectacular Search Bash!).

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

Before the Search Bash began CEO Daron Babin of WebmasterRadio.FM got everyone talking after he proclaimed the entertainment at the Search Bash would be better than ever… even to rival Google’s impressive Google Dance the night before.

Well, it is safe to say we were all pretty skeptical that Google’s party could be beat. That said, I don’t know of anyone that would doubt Daron’s capability to go over the top – he is a true entertainer. As a result, attendance was high for the kick off and I don’t think anyone was dissapointed by the entertainment that got progressively awe inspiring as the night continued. Read more…

Last year StepForth celebrated its 10th year anniversary as a company and today we get to celebrate another auspicious event; the 1000th post in the StepForth SEO Blog!

Since 2002 the StepForth staff has been writing newsletters, articles, and white papers which if totalled would accumulate to far more than 1000 pieces of content but the StepForth’s SEO Blog’s inaugural post was published on August 20th, 2003; “Yahoo and MSN Continue to Grab for Google’s Gold” by our previous in-house writer Jim Hedger. Not long after, on August 27th I wrote an article about the advantages of having a blog called “A Marketing Tool that is Difficult to Ignore.” I was pretty excited about the whole concept of blogging and the obvious marketing benefits inherent to the medium. But little did I know we would actually see the day where we would break the 1000 postings barrier. Read more…