StepForth is proud to announce that after careful review The Direct Marketing Association, a recognized and respected resource for marketers, has accepted StepForth’s white paper titled “Do it Yourself Social Media Marketing” into its approved marketing knowledge base.
The “Do it Yourself Social Media Marketing” white paper was written to educate business owners on the essentials methods required to harness the immense power of social media marketing. Read more…
Responses to my previous posting called “How to Ethically Update Wikipedia” have been incredibly polarized and I felt it was important I provide some visibility to the ethical issues and ramifications faced by an immensely influential volunteer-run organization like Wikipedia.
First a Little Background
My July 17th posting was based on an excellent article published at Search Engine Land called “SEO Tips & Tactics from a Wikipedia Insider” written by a Wikipedia Administrator with the pseudonym Durova. My post summarized a few of the unethical Wikipedia listings that Durova had noticed throughout her time at Wikipedia and how Wikipedia responded to each situation. I was very impressed by Durova’s article and how transparent the process appeared to be.
Read more…
On July 11th, Google’s Blogger announced a deceptively minor update that allowed users to reference a 3rd party feed for their blog. For veteran Blogger users the importance of this update may be obvious but for others let me explain.
Then: Blogger only had its own feed type which meant that users of Feedburner or other 3rd party feed trackers had to include two feeds on their blog – one being their 3rd party service and the other being the Google service. The result was that some visitors who subscribed to their blog could have subscribed to the Google feed rather than the preferred 3rd party feed. This meant the actual subscriber base for a blog would be inaccurate (lower than it actually is) because the 3rd party feed is the feed being measured. Read more…
The Mobile Web is undoubtedly going to grow and grow until a mega industry takes shape; after all, there are simply too many people getting more and more addicted to instant information gratification. This fact is not lost on any country with a mobile network and Canada is no exception. Unfortunately for Canadians we are being suffocated by mobile data rates that are exceedingly more expensive than even a third world country like Rwanda. Unless our data rates come down you can bet that Canada will be left in the dust while the world of mobile commerce skyrockets. Read more…
Today Microsoft earned a win that made me look twice by convincing Digg to sign a 3 year deal where Microsoft Ads will be the “exclusive provider of display and contextual advertising on Digg” (see press release). Having previously used Google Adsense to serve ads (according to Barry Schwartz’s breaking article) it is a huge win for Microsoft to peg this contract. This immensity of this win became especially clear when I compared a few of the top social media voting sites side by side at Compete.com. As you can see below Digg pulverizes the competition with a reach of approximately 22.5 million visitors per month in comparison to Reddit (976,882), and StumbleUpon (731,424).
Charts or no charts, however you look at this agreement advertising with Microsoft Ads has just become a lot more tantalizing.
An article was published today on Search Engine Land called “SEO Tips & Tactics From a Wikipedia Insider” and it has to be one of the most interesting and best written articles I have seen in a while. The article was written by a lady by the name of Durova who is “a Wikipedia administrator who confronts some of the site’s most disruptive editors. She uses a pen name to avoid harassment in real life.” (this is a snippet from the bio at the bottom of the article) Read more…
Last week Google made its move against eBay owned Skype, an online person-to-person internet telephony company, with the purchase of startup company, GrandCentral Communications.
On Monday, Google product manager Wesley Chan posted confirmation of the deal in the official Google Blog:
“We’re pleased to announce that we have acquired GrandCentral Communications, a company that provides services for managing your voice communications. GrandCentral is an innovative service that lets users integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into one account, which can be accessed from the web. We think GrandCentral’s technology fits well into Google’s efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users.”
On June 24th an anonymous blogger posted an interview he did with an ex Google employee called “Life at Google – The Microsoftie Perspective“. Due to the required anonymity of the interview (Google is probably not happy about it) it cannot be verified for its authenticity but the post has caused a ton of noise over the past month and I found it a very intriguing read. To many this is a very old story but if you missed it I think you will really enjoy it. I sensed it was credible because it smacked of truth but the ultimate decision is yours – whether to believe it or not. Read more…As Paul Kedrosky noted today in his blog it appears undeniable that Facebook is positioning itself for an initial public offering (IPO). When? Who knows but their newly available job position for a “Stock Administration Manager” with “strong knowledge of SEC, FASB, and IRS rules and regulations relating to stock plans and insider trading…” is a good tip off that one will be coming within a year. With Facebook seemingly on the lips of every 20-30 something person I know (both in the tech sector and not), I would say this will be one very lucrative windfall for the current shareholders.
Today James Pearce at .Mobi announced that their mobile website review tool (ready.mobi) has been upgraded to offer a site wide mobile-ready analysis. Previously users could only verify their site’s mobile page compatibility one page at a time so this upgrade is indeed newsworthy. Read more…
