Wengovisio

WengoPhone has released a new software tool that allows you to embed Internet telephony into your webpage. With a tool like this you can allow your audience/customer to click on a “talk to a agent now” button on your website (providing they have a microphone and speakers on their PC).

Looks interesting….

Installation files and more information can be found on the Wengovisio website.

Fake Your Space

I spotted this on Slashdot – for just shy of a dollar a month you can add fake friends to your MySpace or Facebook account. Very scary…. or just a joke site.

Opera Mini

Opera (makers of fine Internet browsers) released version 3.0 of their Opera Mini Browser. I have been experimenting with the new version on my mobile telephone and am very impressed with the results. Opera Mini manages to make surfing the Internet on your ‘phone a more pleasant experience by utilizing a proxy server to pre-process data for you. The end result is smaller downloads and faster page updates.

One of the clever features that Opera has developed is content folding. Long lists (such as navigation elements) have been shrunk and hidden behind a “+” button. Just click on the element to toggle hide/display. This reduces clutter on small screens.

Palm users on Slashdot and other forums have indicated that the software has some flaws on some devices but my experience has been good. I was even able to access MySpace.

The mobile Internet has not really taken off in the United States, hopefully that will change. Opera Mini runs on a multitude of telephones (including some very old models) and installation is quick and painless. If you have a website that you think mobile users might access you would do well to download Opera Mini and test your site.

Google Apps for Your Domain

Google has just launched Google Apps for Your Domain. The service offers:

• Start page- Users can access email, calendar, news, weather and more in a single place.
• Email - 2 gigabytes of storage and search tools that help your users find information fast. Instant messaging from right inside their accounts.
• Chat - Users can call or send instant messages to their contacts for free – anytime, anywhere in the world.
• Calendar - Users can organize their schedules and share events and calendars with others.
• Domain web pages - Administrators can create simple web pages and publish them to your domain.

These are services that Google has offered in the past but the interesting angle is that Google now allows you to use your domain (rather than xxx@gmail.com). So far the service is free but I get the impression that this may grow into a revenue stream for Google.

Well worth investigating.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Seminar

I am presenting a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Seminar at DePaul University on Friday, March 16, 2007. The registration page has just gone live and we are waiting to see what the interest is.

I will be writing the content shortly and the featured topics will include:

• Major search engines (such as Google, Yahoo and MSN)
• How search engines and directories work
• The importance and use of keywords and key phrases
• Search engine terminology and jargon
• How to get search engines to index your websites
• How to check how search engines are indexing your site
• How to implement and use website statistics
• Best practices writing for the Web
• HTML coding best practices (including appropriate use of meta tags, keywords, alt text, anchor text, robots.txt, naming conventions and semantic organization)
• Inbound links
• Linking strategy
• Blogging
• SEO strategies to avoid
• Paid search (pay-per-click, Google Adwords, etc.)

Featured Site: Audiosnacks

AudioSnacks is a community site where tourists and travelers can download audio podcasts. It is a perfect place to go just before you jet off to a new city or head down to the museum.

Michael Salvatore (Audiosnacks CEO) was a participant in my Practical Internet Marketing class and used the opportunity to hone his marketing skills and promote the Audiosnacks site. Have a look and find an audio tour:

AudioSnacks: Podcast and MP3 Audio Tours for Travel, Museums and More!

Build a Web spider on Linux

M. Tim Jones has written a useful article on building a Web spider which can be found on IBM’s website. Spiders are programs that craw the Web and gather information. Search engines use spiders to build their search databases.

The article has some additional resources that are worth reading. Of particular note is an article that suggests several ways to protect yourself from the e-mail harvesting spiders that collect e-mail addresses for spammers.

Hot Site Statistics

Google Analytics has a great feature that overlays click to individual elements on your website. It is a useful way of determining what works well on webpages. Heatmaps can take this to the next level.

Crazyegg provides a free (and paid) service where you can install a small piece of script on your webpages. That script then allows you to view a heatmap overlay of clicks on your page. To a certain extent it is a gimmick but the visual feedback can help in pointing what needs to be changed in the way of link placement and wording.

Crazyegg has been running a little slow of late. There are other options you can consider instead:

• ClickDensity has a competing product which has a 30 day demo.
• For those of you looking for an opensource choice there is a SourceForge project that has been released under the GPL. The project is fairly new and there is limited documentation but this might be a viable option for some

Number Two on Google!

I have spent a couple of weeks (ethically) promoting the “Practical Internet Marketing Certificate Program” page on DePaul CPE’s website. Whilst I do not have control over the metadata and URL of that page I do have the ability to change Web copy and create inbound links. That work has paid off. If you search for “Practical Internet Marketing” on Google then CPE’s page comes up as number two.

Hopefully this top placement results in registrations for the program. Hoping to reach number one shortly.

Google Analytics

Looking to quickly and cheaply find out how many people are looking at your website or blog? If you are in serious need of site data, then you could do worse than signing up for Google Analytics.

The process is straightforward and relatively painless. You need to add a small chuck of code that Google generates to your site template (or find an alternative way of adding the code to every page you want statistics for) and then away you go.

Google has a nice little blog to keep you updated on changes and features.

Wiley Publishing has just brought out a book (with the original name of “Google Analytics”) that can provide you with a deeper understanding of what you can do.

Where the Hell is Matt?

This is not the timeliest piece of news but on each occasion that I watch this video it brings a smile to my face. I think Stride gum should be given some real credit for the down-to-earth and librating way they sponsored Matt to travel a second time round the globe and film himself dancing. Perhaps I will purchase some of their chewing gum some time…

This type of video validates Google’s decision to purchase YouTube. YouTube have made it fantastically easy to share content on the Web. Hopefully Google will just make things easier to search and to categorize. Microsoft Soapbox is unlikely to be able to compete with this.

commandN

Just come across a great technology vodcast/vlog by the name of commandN. The team cleverly use YouTube of one of the ways of broadcasting their show (which I am sure cuts down on bandwidth costs) but also has the usual option of subscribing via iTunes.

Updated weekly and well worth checking out.

Internet Infomercials

Joel Comm is probably right about Internet infomercials. Providing the infomercials are less than 30 seconds in length I think they will be successful. I see a significant number of entrepreneurs buying products like Visual Communicator 2 (and a greenscreen) and creating spots at home.

I wonder if Kinkos will start providing this service for walk-in clients?

The vlog GeekBrief has already demonstrated how easy it is to put enticing content together. Providing you have something to say and the right personality for the camera…

Google Reader

The Unofficial Apple Website had an excellent overview of Google Reader (Google’s online RRS reader service). This prompted me to check it out and I am very, very impressed.

The speed the application runs at is scary. I have now given up on using RSSOwl from my USB thumb drive and am a happy convert.

I am starting to load up my RSS feeds and it looks like Google Reader is my new homepage.

MySpace

I finally succumbed to MySpace and created a simple account. I had been putting off the inevitable for years and decided that this weekend I would add myself to the masses on MySpace.

MySpace pages have a certain level of notoriety for having garish design and a tendency to overwhelm the senses. I wanted to create a fairly simplified page. More for experimentation than anything.

There are two great resources that I have come across for improving the look and feel of your MySpace page:

1. Mike Davidson’s “Hacking A More Tasteful MySpace” provides a CSS redesign and images which you can use to good effect. The CSS file keeps MySpace elements in the same place. Adapting Mike’s files to your uses is simply a matter of creating four new images and minor changes to a CSS file.
2. Eston Bond’s “The web designer’s guide to MySpace” is a more complex affair (but still straightforward to follow). Eston provides a detailed explanation of how to breakdown and recreate the MySpace elements and create a personalized page.

Both resources are well worth investigating.

Project Management Tools and more…

Marketing is project based. To manage projects effectively you need to be organized. Many project managers use software tools to keep everything on time and on budget. One of the more interesting choices is 37signals’ Basecamp.

I have been a fan of Basecamp for a couple of years. Basecamp is an online project management collaboration tool. The software allows teams to effectively communicate and manage resources within a project. Since it works through a Web interface you don’t need to worry about installing client software. I like it.

Much as I like Basecamp I have tried to investigate alternatives. Zoho Projects looks like it might be a worthy competitor. Worth checking out. Zoho also has a slew of free/paid hosted software solutions that offer similar functionality to Microsoft Office.

For those of you with access to your own Web server you may want to look at activeCollab. activeCollab is free and Open Source. It does much of what Basecamp and Zoho Projects does.

Online Marketing Blog

One of the more interesting marketing blogs on the Web is the Online Marketing Blog. It is a recommended site to add to your bookmarks or RSS reader.

Blogging Best Practices

We are in Week 3 of the Practical Internet Marketing Certificate Program and the topics discussed this week are Blogs, Wikis and RSS. Creating a blog has become something that now requires less technical expertise. More and more people are blogging so you need to ensure that your blog has certain qualities that distinguish it from the competition.

A good start is to investigate what are considered best practice. Here are three links to start you off:

Dave Taylor’s Blogging Best Practices
Dave has some sensible suggestions suitable for most blogs

Kari White’s 7 Best Practices for Corporate Blogging
Kari has some excellent advice for the corporate world that wants to engage with the blogosphere.

Joshua Fruchter’s Best Practices for Legal Blogging
Blawgs = Law Blogs.

Lastly David L. Sifry (founder and CEO of Technorati) has osme excellent advice that was published in Wired magazine:

1) React quickly. Commentators like Andrew Sullivan and Michelle Malkin draw megatraffic with immediate rebuttals to A-list pundits at The New York Times and Fox News.

2) Make your posts easy to read. Italian comic Beppe Grillo broke into the Top 10 by setting his key points in boldface.

3) Link, link, link! It’s counter-intuitive, but the busiest blogs in Technorati’s index are those like Insta-Pundit.com that link prolifically to other sites. Linking works because most bloggers reciprocate by sending their readers your way.

4) Optimize for search engines. Put the name of your blog (even if it’s just your own name) in the main URL and the title tag of your site. On Technorati, identify your blog with search topics, like “politics” or “sewing.”

5) Post, post, post! Chinese actress and director Xu Jinglei has the most popular blog on the planet. At first we thought it was a glitch in our system, but it turns out she’s a real-world celebrity who makes time to post almost every day. What’s your excuse?

New dates added for 2007

We have published the new dates the program will be offered for 2007. DePaul CPE’s website is now accepting registrations. The 2007 dates are:

Wednesdays, February 7 - March 14, 2007
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Thursdays, April 26 - May 31, 2007
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Online registration is available for the Practical Internet Marketing Certificate Program: Hands-On Techniques for Small Businesses and Nonprofits


The program is offered in Chicago. I am contemplating creating an online version of the program.

Welcome to The Practical Internet Marketing Certificate Program Blog

Do you have high marketing costs? Want to know how to use the Internet to promote yourself or your business? This six-week certificate program will provide hands-on experience with simple, low-cost Internet marketing tools and techniques. Learn how to blog, podcast and vodcast as well as optimize your web pages for search engines.

Over six weeks this course will explore both the best practices of Internet marketing and simple, low-cost Internet tools. Basic computer experience on either a Windows or a Mac OS platform is expected. Each class will feature a combination of presentation, instruction and class discussion. Each class will end with an exercise due the following week. The course will culminate in class presentations.