Web 2.0 and Marketing

Web 2.0 is an industry buzzword. It is not just all hype however. I think that when it comes down to it, the term web 2.0 really does have meaning and your actions on the internet are apart of it. O’Reilly breaks it down best. They have a great breakdown of comparisons for 1.0 vs 2.0 – and anyone who has used these services and has a technical background will have an appreciation for the comparison. These simple services have transformed, to make it possible to target markets and segments very easily. It puts so much more information at the consumers fingertips, but also allows you to really get into their faces if you can harness the power of the new internet that is among us. Web 2.0 may not be defined in any dictionary, or be a real term at all. The bottom line is whatever you want to call it, the internet has evolved into a place where you can strategically market yourself, a service, or product and drop it on the lap of the consumer. Going about it the right way is the challenge, and keeping up with it may be even tougher. This is going to be the basis of a series of articles I post in order to educate people on how to use different services and applications to promote yourself or your business and products. How you act on the suggestions is up to you but these guidelines will at least help point you in the right direction and clear up some of the common questions and ideas. (source: SynergyShop).0 and Marketing

Internet Business for Young Entrepreneurs

Google will fight Yahoo in Display Ads Business

Google had made a preparation to grab Internet Display Advertising from Yahoo, a lucrative market that had long been enjoyed and dominated by Yahoo!. Google’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, has said repeatedly that display advertising offers one of the company’s best prospects for expansion, now that growth in its text ad business has slowed significantly. The new advertising exchange is a cornerstone of Google’s display strategy, and one of the main reasons Google bought the ad company DoubleClick last year for $3.1 billion.

Google executives say the new system, called the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, will greatly simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, allowing many more publishers and advertisers to benefit from it.

Currently Google finds itself in the unfamiliar role of underdog. As one of the Web’s biggest publishers, and a seller of ads on a network of top sites like eBay and hundreds of newspapers, Yahoo is the king of the display advertising business. In 2007 Yahoo bought Right Media, a pioneering ad exchange whose business has grown steadily since, in part because many of the ads that run on Yahoo are brokered through it.

Still, analysts say Google’s push into the business could shake up the market. DoubleClick has had an ad exchange for some time. But the new system will automatically allow hundreds of thousands of advertisers and publishers who now use Google’s AdWords and AdSense systems to run their ads and ad space through the exchange.

“Marketers are going to be able to effectively reach 100 percent of the Internet audience and do so at a high frequency,” said William Morrison, an analyst with ThinkEquity Partners. “That is very difficult to do on the Internet right now, outside of a handful of major Web sites like Yahoo and a few others.”

Ad exchanges have been hailed as the future of the industry for some time, yet Mr. Morrison said that they only account for between 10 and 15 percent of the display advertising business. He said it was unlikely that the DoubleClick exchange would catch up with Yahoo’s exchange within the next year. But the Google exchange could become dominant over the long term, especially among premium brand marketers and publishers, he added. (source: NYT)

Android installed quietly in More Mobile Phones

Google's Android platform isn't often cited when end users discuss the leaders in the mobile phone market. Typically, those discussions are dominated by companies such as Apple, Research In Motion and even Microsoft. But it's Google that's quietly gaining ground in the space.

The company is behind more phone releases running its Android operating system than you might think. Aside from the T-Mobile G1—the first Android-based phone to hit store shelves—HTC's MyTouch 3G is currently offered to consumers. HTC also announced the Tattoo Tuesday that promises some neat functionality for European users. It's the company's fourth Android-based phone.

But HTC isn't alone. Companies like Motorola, LG and even Acer have signed on to produce Android-based products. Google's partners in the Open Handset Alliance have joined at such a rapid rate that the company hopes to have up to 20 Android-based phones available by the end of 2009. It could more than double that number by the end of 2010. And yet, Android doesn't receive the kind of respect or attention Apple does. It's an afterthought when it comes time to analyze the mobile phone market.


Admittedly, that is mainly due to the fact that Android doesn't hold the kind of market share its competitors do. In fact, it's trailing far behind Apple's iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry devices and even Windows Mobile.

But it may not stay that way much longer. Unlike Apple, which has tied its future to one product, Google decided to follow in Microsoft's footsteps and open up its software to vendors. And unlike Microsoft's Windows Mobile, which provides a subpar experience, Google's Android mobile operating system is a fine alternative to the iPhone.

The Experience

In the cell phone market, providing an experience is a key success factor. If a phone doesn't have a touch-screen, doesn't sport some kind of multitouch technology and doesn't have an App Store, most users won't find as much value in it. Those are requirements that Apple has put in place, and like it or not, its competitors have to play ball.

And Google is playing ball. Its Android operating system boasts outstanding software that appeals to just about anyone who uses it. In fact, it's a nice alternative to Apple's iPhone software.

Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a way to optimize a wibsite so as to make it easily searched and found in the world of cyber space by a Search Engine with the purpose of increasing visits to the website.

Thus the easier a wibsite is searched, the more likely that the website is visited by a web visitor. It then has a better chance to have its content or advertising content be seen by a visitor.

There are two basic SEO Optimisation techniques, namely the On Page and the Off Page techniques.

The On Page technique is a method to make a better website appearance, in its design, its we page content or its web theme. While the Off Page technique is a way to develop many links toward our website or blog, such as by providing link from our comment to a blog, guest book, through our chatting activities, mailing list, etc.

Social Media Guidelines for Employees

Oh, social media. You're taking up so much of our time and energy that companies need to tell us how to behave.

On one hand, it seems silly. Most of these guidelines are common sense, but common sense may not be enough where personal opinions and legal and human resource departments collide.

I don't blame them. In fact, I think there are smart things being said in these guidelines that would have been nice to have around years ago.

Protecting business and fighting negative perception are important to every company. The last thing they want or need is for employees to be out there in the social media sphere of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or anywhere else spouting false information, making their work life too transparent or arguing with other employees publicly.

Two companies taking social media seriously are Intel and IBM. Intel is taking it so seriously it apparently has created a department dedicated to the practices of smart social media, says ZDNet's Jason Hiner.

From a human resources perspective, it's a really wise move to have clear guidelines and policies, and for most employees, it's good to know where your company stands on posting information--especially with issues of legality, copyright, company secrets and the like. I could very well see other companies borrowing from Intel's and IBM's social media guidelines.

Here's why:

• They accepts that things are going to change with emerging social technologies


• They lay the behaviorial framework that it would expect to see


• They protect themsleves in case of bad behavior, slander or offensive lawsuits


• Implicit in these guideline is that for the right infraction you could be fired


• In the case of Intel, they require training for employees and bloggers

So, what are Intel's guidelines? Here are some of the details:

• Be transparent
• Be judicious
• Write what you know
• Perception is reality
• It's a conversation
• Are you adding value?
• Your responsibility
• Create some excitement
• Be a leader
• Did you screw up?
• If it give you pause, pause

The one that sticks out to me is "create some excitement," but if you are blogging or promoting Intel in social media, than there is certain level of buzz they are trying to generate. Makes sense, but feels like less of a guideline and more a tone they want. Respectfully, it feels a bit forced, but it's in their best interest to keep it as positive as possible.

IBM is another technology company that has its social computing guidelines publicly posted--and they are a bit more detailed about what they think participants should behave. IBM goes so far as to say that it discourages IBMers from being political or religious where IBM is part of the discussion--subjects that can easily flare up in social media. From the IBM guidelines:

Respect your audience and your coworkers. Remember that IBM is a global organization whose employees and clients reflect a diverse set of customs, values and points of view. Don't be afraid to be yourself, but do so respectfully. This includes not only the obvious (no ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, etc.) but also proper consideration of privacy and of topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory--such as politics and religion. For example, if your blog is hosted on an IBM-owned property, avoid these topics and focus on subjects that are business-related. If your blog is self-hosted, use your best judgment and be sure to make it clear that the views and opinions expressed are yours alone and do not represent the official views of IBM.

While having these guidelines helps establish the legal framework that these companies need to be able to operate in, it works as an added benefit to employees that they know where they stand if they post things deemed controversial. In IBM's case, it even has guidelines for virtual worlds behavior given its well-documented use of operating in that space.

In its virtual world guideline, the company goes so far as to advise about the appearance of your avatar, if that avatar is in fact doing IBM business virtually.

My advice: make sure your avatar has a shirt on and doesn't have a head of snakes.

Hijacking Smartphone via SMS Mesage

Black Hat Researchers have uncovered a bevy of vulnerabilities in smart phones made by multiple vendors, including one in Apple's iPhone that could allow an attacker to execute malicious code without requiring the victim to take any action at all.

The iPhone bug allows an attacker to take complete control of the coveted device simply by sending the owner an SMS, or short message service, message, said Charlie Miller, principal analyst at Independent Security Evaluators. He said he informed Apple's security team of the vulnerability several weeks ago and has yet to receive an official response.

The vulnerability is the same one Miller discussed three weeks ago, when he said he wasn't sure if it would allow him to do anything other than remotely crash an iPhone. Now that he's had more time to analyze the bug, he says he's confident he can remotely hijack the devices by doing nothing more than sending a malformed SMS message.

The bug resides in CommCenter, a service that's responsible for handling SMS, wireless and other functions in the iPhone. By default, it runs as root and isn't limited by an application sandbox. That makes it an ideal vector for taking control of the device. What's more, the messages are delivered automatically and often aren't easy for users to block.

The attack is carried out by dropping the last byte or two from UDH, or user data header, contained in the message, something that's fairly trivial to do.

Miller's discovery is the result of an aggressive fuzzing endeavor he and fellow researcher Collin Mulliner carried out over the past few months and laid out during a talk at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. It threw more than 500,000 specially manipulated SMS messages at smart phones running operating systems made by Apple, Google and Microsoft to see how they might react. To save the researchers a bundle in fees charged by the phone carriers, they created a man-in-the-middle channel between the devices' application processor and modem so the messages didn't have to be sent over the network.

Mulliner also reported several bugs that can cause smart phones running Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating systems to crash. Because SMS messages are stored on carrier servers until the recipient is online, hackers can create long-lasting denial-of-service attacks by queuing up a large number of the malformed SMS messages.

Their talk came on the heels of one given by researchers Luis Miras, reverse engineer for RingZero, and Zane Lackey, senior security consultant for iSEC Partners. They showed it was possible to deliver MMS, or multimedia messaging service, messages over rogue servers that completely bypass the systems carriers use to block communications containing malware, spam and other malicious content.

That makes it possible for them to spoof the phone numbers of the sender, allowing them to masquerade as a recipient's bank, friend or other trusted party. They can also spoof the date and time stamps that appear on the messages.

One possible attack might involve sending a message that purports to come from the victim's carrier that warns the phone needs to be updated immediately and contains a link to software that creates a backdoor on the device instead.

The attack works by manipulating certain fields in the message headers so they include values that are intended to be used only by the carriers. (source: dan Goodin - The Register)