Up Close with YouTube at SMX West 2009

We spoke with Matt Liu, the YouTube Product Manager at Google who had some interesting things to say about the popular video site. He presented at the “Up Close with YouTube” session at SMX West, and shared a little more with us separately.

He talks about ways that content partners, advertisers, and every day users can take advantage of YouTube. He discussed optimizing titles, descriptions, and tags for videos, and mentions YouTube’s paid service.

YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine, so it stands to reason that rankings play a factor in YouTube just like they would with Google Search. Matt breaks it down into 2 main buckets:

Basic stuff like making sure your titles, descriptions, and tags are consistent, using complete sentences when appropriate, adding the location and date of your video, etc.

Analytics - Once you get some viewership on the video, use YouTube’s analytics tool YouTube Insight to see who’s watching your video. Are your views coming from a certain audience? A certain geography? Find the video’s hot spots. You can figure out search terms from the analytics data.

He then talks in more detail about YouTube Insight, which he compares to Google Analytics but specifically for video.

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Top 3 Reasons Why Article Submission Services Drive More Traffic To Your Website

By B Hopkins in Writing

In today’s world of Internet marketing, it is necessary to have multiple means of getting traffic to your website. Not just any traffic, but targeted traffic, which will more likely result in the desired action you wish your readers to make. Article Internet marketing is a great way to get this targeted traffic to your website. There are many ways to market your articles however the most effective way is to maximize the use of your time when marketing these articles. If you market your articles efficiently, you can write more and get even more traffic to your website. Article submission services are one of the most efficient ways to get traffic to your website from your articles. Article submission services are services that automatically submit your articles to article directories and publishers for you. Some of them may have their own submission requirements to be able to submit to the maximum number of directories, so it is important to follow their submission guidelines. If you don’t follow the guidelines, you are only hurting yourself.

1) Instead of spending time submitting articles to directories, you are writing articles.

Let’s say there are over 500 article directories and publishers out there that you could be submitting your articles to. If you are submitting your articles to all these directories by hand and it takes you about 10 minutes to submit an article to a directory, then that is 5000 minutes, or about 3 ½ days. You can write a lot of articles in 3 /12 days! The amount of time you may spend submitting an article to an article submission service may be 30 minutes at most. 1 submission vs. over 500; how much is your time worth?

2) Additional exposure for your article.

Many times, article submission services have their own directories and lists that only members of their submission service have their articles on. These services also spend time getting traffic to their websites as well as provide ways that you can use to market your articles easily, such as RSS feeds, article directories and other tools. You get the benefit of the traffic that is on their article directory already because that traffic can stumble across your article.

3) Data you can use to more powerfully market your products/services through your articles.

Most of the good article submission services will keep statistics about who looks at your article, who downloads your article and who uses your article feed. This is valuable information that gives you insight into what kinds of articles your target market finds interesting and what kinds of titles draw them in. You can look over time which kinds of articles are out-performing the other articles and from there you can tailor the kind of articles you would write to produce even better results in terms of getting more traffic to your website. This is free marketing information that is very powerful feedback in being able to enhance your marketing message through your articles.

These are the top 3 methods of why article submission services will help you to drive more traffic to your website. However, there are other benefits as well of article submission services that will really enhance your results of driving hungry visitors to your website. When authors take all of these into account, then they will put themselves out in front of their competition on the Internet. A well-developed strategy is the key to success.

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Want to send targeted traffic to your website but don’t know what service will help you? Get help with this article submission service review at Discover how to make money with your articles and article internet marketing

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Now all those hours spent pleasuring yourself can be traded in for valuable gaming experience: The DIY Joydick

by John Biggs

This is pretty much the craziest thing I’ve seen all day (except for Stephen King - homeboy looks weird). This is a ring that you place over your penis that allows you to move your wang in four directions to control the on-screen Atari 2600 action. Strokes shoot your missiles on screen and gameplay continues until issue.

The makers at the SF Media Labs note that there is really a philosophy behind this process of build-up and release.

Our impetus to win can be seen as a drive towards transcendence. A transcendence that is both over death and, in a sense, a metaphorical death. Winning a video game is much like what Martin Heidegger referred to as becoming a “being towards death.” That is a self-realized individual who has overcome uncertainty in life, reconciled their place in the universe and has acknowledged death within their life.

This simultaneity of both transcendence in life and the acknowledgment of death is also encountered during what the French like to call “la petite morte” or in English, “the little death.” This is the refractory period following sexual climax in which a person can achieve no further orgasm and is filled both with pleasure and melancholy.

It would be reasonable to assert that the tension that builds during gameplay and the release achieved through victory are similar to the events leading up and through a sexual orgasm.

Got that? Good. Now all they have to do is connect this to World of Warcraft - say linking the orgasm to a level up - and a generation of men will never have sex, even unto death. Full instructions are available at the SF Media Labs website.

Just think: what if you could connect this to Twitter?

Twitter To Start Charging Companies For Having An Account?

by Robin Wauters



Companies using Twitter for commercial purposes may soon start getting charged for that activity, according to an interview British trade magazine Marketing (part of BrandRepublic) held with co-founder Biz Stone.

This is what Stone reportedly said:

“We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them. We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts.”

No big surprises there, as this is often cited as one of the most obvious moves Twitter could make to start generating revenue, although many are expecting more from the startup who has become notorious for its lack of an apparent business model even after nearly 3 years of existence. Stone also said they will not start charging individual users, and that the move could “create revenue-generating features to tap into the way brands use Twitter as a hybrid marketing and customer-service tool.”

Stone did not give any details regarding pricing or the specific way Twitter would go about charging users and for what exactly. As a reminder: the startup has raised $20 million in venture capital to date and recently turned down an acquisition offer from Facebook.

One of the most recent examples of companies using Twitter for commercial purposes is Dell, who reportedly made $1 million in sales during the holidays via the micro-sharing utility, and recently started giving discounts exclusively to its followers.

We’ll see more of this type of behavior in the future beyond any shred of doubt, but I’m wondering what exactly is considered as ‘commercial usage’ by Twitter management: does it mean any way of promoting a product or service or only when there’s sales activity connected to the corporate accounts? And will companies be prepared to pay up for use of the service at all?

Marketing got in touch with Bob Pearson, VP of communities and conversations at Dell, with that exact question and got a telling response: “If it becomes complicated and costly, our instinct would be to move elsewhere.”

Update: as Peter Kafka points out in comments, there was good article two days ago in New York Magazine which reveals a little more of where Twitter is headed.

(Picture from Profy, hat tip to Matt from Made by Many)

Why Facebook Isn’t Poised to Steal Twitter’s Thunder

by Mark Hendrickson

Last night, Facebook announced a set of changes to its platform that make it easier for third-party applications to exchange data about users’ status messages, notes, shared links, and videos.

The more open Facebook’s platform gets, the more powerful it becomes for developers to build fun and useful applications with Facebook’s data, either onsite or off. However, several pundits have already jumped to the conclusion that greater openness with concern to status updates in particular spells trouble for Twitter, the bourgeoning microblog service that Facebook itself recently courted without success.

No one knows just where Facebook is heading with its platform or whether it’s serious about crushing novel new social networking services like Twitter or FriendFeed. It’s easy for bloggers to speculate that every incremental change to its platform or feature set is a devious plan to do just this. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, especially when there’s a lot to suggest that Facebook has a long way to go before putting any kind of dent in Twitter’s growing popularity.

Mike Butcher over at TechCrunch UK has outlined four particular ways in which he thinks Facebook “won’t kill Twitter”. First off, Facebook has a fundamentally different relationship model than Twitter. On Facebook, you create a simple two-way friendship with someone. On Twitter, you can choose to follow someone and you can be followed, but the following relationship doesn’t have to be bidirectional.

Butcher also suggests that Facebook is more interested in preserving ownership over its social graph than Twitter is over its own. And he points out that the replies Twitter users make to each other are usually public.

These are all fine points to make, and the technical differences he spells out certainly make it more difficult for Facebook to recreate the appeal of Twitter. But when it comes down to it, Facebook fails to challenge Twitter with this new platform upgrade because the two companies ultimately serve substantially different behavioral paradigms.

While Twitter and Facebook prompt users with eerily similar questions — Twitter asks “What are you doing?” and Facebook asks “What are you doing right now?” — their users don’t answer in the same way. By and large, Facebook users answer the question more faithfully than Twitter users. They actually provide information about what they’re currently doing, perhaps because they are prompted with a field that starts with something like “Mark is”. And the news feed lists their entries as action items (”Mark is having a bike ride” or at least “Mike likes biking outside”) under a tab called Status Updates.

Meanwhile, Twitter users have (by and large) decided to ignore the questioned posed for them. Instead of using the service to post real status updates — i.e. descriptions of what they’re currently doing — they use it as a public broadcasting system of sorts. It’s an efficient way for them to send out thought trinkets to an often ambiguous crowd of friends and strangers. And with @replies, Twitter morphs into a conversational medium, a big cocktail party where everybody is constantly eavesdropping on everybody else’s impromptu conversations.

There are, of course, exceptions to these generalizations. Facebook users do enter random thoughts in lieu of real status updates, and Twitter users do actually say what they’re currently doing. But the overlap is rather small, and it’s this smallness that undermines any attempt (real or imaginary) on Facebook’s part to steal Twitter’s thunder. Something behavioral about Facebook’s users would have to change, and it’s unlikely that these users — who are largely mainstream — are inclined to pick up the tweeting habits of a crowd that consists mostly of early adopters.

Twitter is a Cash Cow in the Making

by Joe Hall

We have been talking a great deal lately about how Twitter should be monetizing their service. Most of this talk comes after news that Twitter secured $20 million in venture capital, to push its total valuation to $250 million. It wasn’t long ago that Twitter started looking for a product manager to define a revenue stream. This is a smart move for a company that has relied solely on venture capital from day one.

Andy recently wrote a post detailing his thoughts for a Twitter subscription program. This is an idea that even Twitter’s CEO Evan Williams has spoken about in the past.

We’ve though about it. We had to do some thinking about that to raise a bunch of money, but it’s not actively in development right now. The broad strokes on the matter are obviously Twitter is being used for a lot of commercial purposes right now, in addition to social purposes. We think that works pretty well. We think there’s a lot of companies that we’ve talked to that seem to be getting a lot of value out of it. If that continues, if that becomes a rich world for users and the companies, we think we can extract some revenue from that.

While I think that a subscription based program of some kind would be a good idea (one I would probably subscribe to), I think that implementing that alone would miss Twitter’s full potential completely.

Twitter’s Full Potential

As Seth Godin states, Twitter is a protocol. What’s a protocol? A protocol is a set of “rules determining the format and transmission of data.” The Twitter Protocol is made possible through Twitter’s overwhelmingly open API. Because of it we can integrate Twitter into just about anything.

So, Twitter is a protocol, whats the big deal? Protocols control the flow of information. Those that have become masters at information control have built insurmountable wealth as a result.

Here’s two real world examples at how the Twitter Protocol could bring on lots of wealth.

URL Control: Many Twitter users use some type of URL shortening service to make their URLs more manageable with in 140 characters. At the moment Twitter is integrated with the infamous TinyURL. If Twitter brought URL shortening in house they could not only brand out going URLs, but they could also control them. Think about every link that leaves Twitter to places like Amazon.com or eBay.com, now think about those links all of the sudden turning into affiliate links. Or how about all of the links that point towards Google SERPs, now think what it would mean if they changed into links that integrated the AdSense for Search program. Are you seeing were I am going with this?

Twitter as a payment gateway: Back in June of last year, Nate Westheimer proposed the idea of Twitter becoming the next big payment processor, by monopolizing on the mobile communications industry’s need for a mobile payment processor like PayPal. I still think this is a solid idea and I am shocked that not many have talked much more about this. Westheimer tells us that combining Twitter’s carrier free social messaging service with a payment processor could put the company in a position to define the mobile standard for payment processing.

The true power behind popular protocols can almost never be predicted, mostly because they are defined by how they are used. This means that as Twitter grows it will have to remain observant of emerging trends of its users, so that they can wield their protocol in ways that allow them to prosper with the aide of their users. For myself, I am excited to see the future.

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Social Media Mistakes

By Jennifer Horowitz in Featured

With so much talk about social media these days, everyone is jumping on board and trying it out. We are seeing some common mistakes out there and I thought it was important to address these mistakes to help eradicate them in the future.

Don’t get me wrong, there will be a learning curve - we all went through it (and I met some great people that helped me, and that I helped along the way) but the key is to learn up front to minimize errors!

So, here we go…

Mistake One: Completely Ignoring Social Media

Believe it or not there are still some people out there that are ignoring social media. They may be unsure of how to participate or maybe they just don’t have time to get involved. No matter what the reason, this is a big mistake. Social media continues to grow in popularity and in importance to internet users - the exact users you are trying to reach.

Mistake Two: Bare Profiles

If you don’t bother completing your profile people won’t be able to get to know you. It is also a sign to other users that you aren’t serious about participating on that site. Many spammers don’t bother to complete their profile and a blank profile has become a red flag.

Your profile should include a custom background when possible, a photo, contact information, and a list of interests to help people get to know you better.

Don’t be afraid to show some personality and let people really get to know you and your company and what you stand for.

Mistake Three: Faking It

We’ve all seen companies being ripped apart for trying to fake it in the social media world. They either hire someone to pretend to be them (it’s OK if staff, colleagues or team members participate, but to hire an unknown to play you, not cool!), or they make up personas or even fake customers posting positive feedback.

The truth is if you can’t invest the time to create an authentic social media profile, you shouldn’t bother creating one at all.

Mistake Four: Trying to Sell Users Instead of Listening

Social media isn’t about you selling, selling, selling. You are here to network, build trust, listen to what customers and prospects have to say. You want to hear customer concerns, to learn about them, to find out what gets them excited, what they like about your product, what they still want, etc.

Remember to be a good social media participant, which means listen before you speak. If you don’t, you risk being written off as yet another company that doesn’t know how to use social media and who is only interested in promoting themselves. Remember, you always have to add value to the communities you’re participating in - just remember its value for your customers, not yourself.

Mistake Five: Recycling

Don’t recycle old content and marketing materials on social media sites. Start new conversations, create new information to share. Granted, you’ll have some content that falls in the “oldie but goodie” category and that’s OK to share. Just try to keep things fresh.

Mistake Six: Launching, then Ignoring

Social media is similar to search engine optimization in that you can’t just set it and forget it. You need to participate and remain active, otherwise you have wasted your time initially setting things up.

If you want your customers to stay engaged, you have to keep producing great content yourself. Keep writing Blog posts, creating widgets and being active in the community. Social media is real work but when done properly it’s worth the effort.

So review your social media practices and make sure you aren’t making any of these mistakes. If you are, change course quickly and get yourself back on track.

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Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing for EcomBuffet.com. Since 1998 Jennifer’s expertise in marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on SEO and has been published in many SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer is the editor of the popular Spotlight on Success: SEO and Marketing newsletter. Follow Jennifer and stay current on SEO, marketing, social media and more. http://twitter.com/EcomBuffet

140it: Condense Ur Text For Twitter When It Won’t All Fit

by Jason Kincaid on January 26, 2009

While Internet slang and abbreviations have become second nature for some technophiles, many of us have trouble converting our words into the pseudo-gibberish sometimes required to make long messages fit into the 140 character limit set by Twitter. 140it, a new service put together over the weekend by the guys behind Yipit, is looking to help. The site will instantly convert whole sentences into condensed text, making common substitutions (like ‘r’ instead of ‘are’), using bit.ly to shorten links, and swapping company names for their StockTwits symbol. The service does its best to retain coherence, cutting extra spaces first and only cutting vowels as a last resort, according to one of its founders.

While there are a few other services like TweetShrink and Twonvert that do the same thing, those sites require you to visit their homepages - something that is easy to forget and usually more trouble than it’s worth. 140it offers a bookmarklet that will immediately make the conversion as you enter your Tweet on the Twitter homepage (see the video below for a demo).

I personally detest using abbreviations unless they’re absolutely necessary (they make my head hurt). But in those cases when I just can’t make everything fit, 140it will come in handy.

140it Demo from Vinicius Vacanti on Vimeo.

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140it will condense your text to fit into Twitter’s 140 character limit. Learn More

Get Instant Digital Pictures with Polaroid PoGo Camera

Polaroid rolled out PoGo Instant Digital Camera at CES 2009 making it the first portable digital camera and instant printer combination available in the U.S. and Europe. It’s the same Polaroid experience that we all know and love, but it’s digital.

The camera is the second product in the Polaroid PoGo line of products. Polaroid PoGo Instant Mobile Printer is first and the camera uses the same ZINK Paper and ZINK Zero Ink Printing Technology that the printer uses. Just as you would normally do with pictures from your digital camera, you can crop, edit, and zoom in on your pictures on a 3-inch color LCD screen before printing them.

The ZINK Zero Ink Printing Technology replaces ink cartridges and ribbons with the ZINK paper, which actually has the ink embedded into it. It takes 60 seconds for the camera to print a 2 x 3-inch photo. The printed pictures are immediately dry to touch and are durable and smudge and water-resistant.

The camera weighs 10 ounces, measures 4.7-inches wide, and is 3-inches tall. Users also have the option of printing with or without borders. The camera also contains a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

The Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera will be available in March and is set to cost $199. Ten-packs of ZINK Photo Paper are priced at $4.99 and 30-packs for $12.99.

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Ensure Privacy and Security with WebAround

Do you use a webcam frequently? If so, we have a product to tell you about that you might be interested in. Do you ever worry about what people might see behind you? Are you appalled at what you see behind other people? A couple of nurses were not satisfied with their neurosurgeon’s surroundings and created a backdrop called a WebAround.

A WebAround is a round, collapsible webcam backdrop designed to give webcam users more privacy. It is simple and portable and makes webcam users feel more comfortable about their surroundings. A WebAround is 40 inches in diameter and about 15 inches when folded. It is made of a lightweight nylon material.

Maybe you work from home and would prefer the rest of the office didn’t see your messy house. Or, maybe you have to use your webcam while you’re traveling and in a restaurant or something and need a backdrop to block out the environment. Another scenario could be that you simply want privacy and consistency with your background.

The WebAround is available in Grey, Emerald Green, and Ocean Blue. Each WebAround is $29.95 and can be ordered from their site.

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AURA by Motorola

At a glance the Motorola AURA will reminded you of the Motorola V70 in the past, a handset that broke new ground when it came to design. The AURA is inspired by high performance racing engines, featuring a circular display (a world's first where mobile devices are concerned) that is able to serve up 16 million colors in 300 dpi resolution, protected by a Grade 1, 62-carat sapphire crystal lens to keep things scratch-resistant.

The AURA features a cool swivel form factor and a high-resolution, circular main display that is covered by a glass lens similar to those found on high end watches. It gives the display, and the rest of the phone, a very rich look.

The AURA has a number of different watch faces that can be used as the standby screen,

This hand-sculpted cell phone is also equipped with Stereo Bluetooth connectivity to keep your hands on both wheels while you're driving despite carrying out a conversation over the AURA.

In terms of raw capabilities, the AURA sports a 2 megapixel camera and works on all four of the major GSM/EDGE network bands used throughout the world. It has 2GB of built-in storage space for tunes and photos

CrystalTalk voice-enhancement technology creates a superior audio experience as well. Other high end features include Internet connectivity, a fixed-focus camera, and a music player.

The Motorola Aura is gorgeous, an obvious marvel of engineering, and it costs $2000. It's almost impossible to end a sentence describing the Motorola Aura without mentioning that it costs $2000.

Get Rid of Clumsy Cords with Powermat

Are you tired of all the power cords and adaptors that go along with charging your devices? If so, Powermat could be the answer to your needs. As demonstrated in this video by Powermat’s President Ron Ferber, the company revealed a line of products at CES 2009 that allows you to charge 3 to 6 devices on a single mat. Powermat charges electronic devices such as ipods, phones, mp3 players, cameras, and even laptops.

Powermat applies the principles of magnetic induction to produce the wireless power. The device includes a very thin mat with a receiver that connects to the appliance you need to charge. The Powermat plugs into an electrical outlet and users can place their gadgets on the mat to charge. All your appliances are capable of being charged simultaneously as the mat and receiver work together.

At this point, the Powermat has 5 different mats that are targeted for different living spaces. They include: home, bedside, desk, travel, and PC. The mats are available in white or black.

To be completely honest, we realize that the Powermat is not entirely wireless since it has to plug into an electrical outlet. It is still a very innovative product on the way to becoming completely wireless and actually could already be incorporated into furniture and walls.

Release date for the Powermat is set for this fall. The mats are priced at $100 and the cases/docks for each device will cost $30.

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Speed Test: iPhone 3G vs. T-mobile G1

Swiss Army Knife with USB Drive, Laser Pointer and More

CES 2009 truly brings new meaning to the trite expression: “they’ve thought of everything.” In this show’s case, it seems that these companies truly have. Who would have ever thought to put a USB drive, laser pointer, and Bluetooth remote control into a Swiss Army knife? Well, the makers of the original Swiss Army Knife, Victorinox Swiss Army did just that and called it Swiss Army Presentation Pro.

In this video, Martin Kuster and Charles Elsener of Victorinox Swiss Army explain how this knife is now equipped with business necessities but still serves the same purpose that your grandfather used it for. The typical functions of a Swiss Army knife include a blade, scissors, nail file with screwdriver, and keyring. The more modern functions include a laser pointer and a Bluetooth remote control for Windows-only PC or laptop presentations.

On top of all that, it also has a removable 32 GB USB drive. This drive has secure data encryption technology that allows users to protect important files and presentations since the only method of access is through the owner’s fingerprint. Other features include: ECC and BCE error correction and AES and DES encryption capable.

This Victorinox Swiss Army Presentation Pro is currently in mass production and is scheduled to be available in the U.S. by the middle of May. The price starts at $169.95 for 8 GB of storage and goes up to $329.95 for 32 GB of storage.

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Getting Top-Rated Content With Blogs and Feeds

As search has evolved, so have searchers. They are no longer looking at corporate websites as the authority, but they are instead looking at their peers and other searchers who have had similar situations to theirs. Searchers want reviews, blogs, and social interaction. So why not take advantage of these free digital assets?

In this video, Sally Falkow of Expansion Plus Inc. explains how the use of blogs and feeds is a very smart strategy for businesses to adopt in this economy because it is inexpensive and gets search results. Also, universal and blended search allows the first page of search results to display all these digital assets. It’s not just ten blue links on the first SERP but blogs, feeds, images, video, news, and so much more.

Research shows that a searcher’s eyes are naturally drawn to an image or video before they look at a regular blue link. In other words, if you are not utilizing these assets then “you are missing an enormous opportunity.”

Sally suggests creating a content strategy that allows you to use digital assets that match your brand image. One method for doing this is storyteller marketing. Sally says, “Every brand has a story.”

Determine what your brand stands for, find out how people perceive your brand, and realize whether or not your brand keeps what it promises to keep. You will find a story somewhere among those answers. Strengthen your story using digital assets and you will be amazed at how your content and brand will rise.

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Stay Connected with GiiNii Mini Movit

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One product that produced a lot of hype at the recent CES show was the GiiNii Mini Movit. The mobile Internet and social networking device allows you to stay connected any time and anywhere. One of the most intriguing elements of this device is the fact that it is carrier-independent. Dennis Sones, the Chief Marketing Officer of GiiNii, told Mike McDonald the Movit permits free calling wherever you find a WiFi hotspot.

Other features include:

- Skype-enabled
- Built-in microphone and speaker to make Skype calls
- Bluetooth 2.0
- 4.3-inch, 480 x 272 pixel touchscreen
- Easily accessible touch keyboard
- Address book
- Front-facing camera (used also as a webcam) and video functionality
- Built-in lithium battery (lasts 6-8 hours)
- Easy access to social networks
- 256 MB of internal storage
- MicroSD slot

The Movit is Android-based and contains an open source platform. An exact price for the device has not been revealed, but GiiNii representatives did say the cost would be lower than the iPod touch. GPS Obsessed reports the expected price to be $149.

GiiNii Movit is set for release during the third quarter of this year and will be available at Walgreens, Walmart, Amazon.com, Target, and zbezt.com.

Now for your thoughts - some speculate that Movit poses a threat for the iPod touch and the iPhone. What do you think? Is this a device that will shift the focus away from Apple?

iPhone,Nokia,Motorola,Blackberry,
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Why eBay Keeps Getting Shoppers

By Chris Crum

You can hardly talk about eBay without bringing out the disgust in all of the people who feel they have been wronged by the eCommerce giant. This group is comprised mostly of sellers who feel eBay has treated them with anything but respect, particularly since changing feedback policies in early 2008 (of course that's not the only thing they don't like. See my top ten list of seller frustrations).

Although buyers have had their own fair share of complaints about eBay as well, it still continues to be one of the leading places that online shoppers go to purchase goods, although retail comparison site JiffyPrice recently showed that Amazon has lower prices on many items that are available for immediate purchase.

"This goes to show how much savvy consumers can save by a very quick bit of shopping around," says JiffyPrice Founder Niall Thewlis. "However, most consumers don’t have the time to compare prices with umpteen different online retailers before making a purchase. We’ve simplified matters greatly, so that shoppers can quickly compare the price of an item between only Amazon and eBay, the two giants of online retail, in just a couple of seconds. We include only these retailers because they’re the ones that most people have used in the past and feel comfortable buying from."

Well that is one possible answer to the question. People feel comfortable buying from eBay (not everyone granted). Why do they feel comfortable? Because of the brand that eBay has established over the years.

Frustrated eBay sellers continue to flock to other sites to sell their goods, but none of them (Amazon excluded perhaps) carry the brand power that eBay does, and therefore can't possibly attract the number of customers that it can.

While not all eBay sellers are unhappy with the site, it seems that the core of them are. It is interesting to see a site that is driven by users continue to thrive despite the boycotting of many of those users who have helped it thrive in the first place. That is brand power.

There are plenty other sites out there that could compete with eBay, based on the testimonials from users who urge fellow ex-eBayers to use them. Yet we don’t really see any of them emerging as a real threat to eBay. eBay is to online auctions what Google is to search. Whenever someone cleans out their closet, they’re encouraged to sell their stuff on eBay by their friends or family. I haven’t often heard “eBay” used as a verb like with “Google,” but it might as well be one. “I have Sinbad’s autograph. I wonder how much I could get for that on eBay.” Statements like that are commonplace (minus the Sinbad part).

Because people think about eBay as a place to sell stuff from their own closet, they also think there is a good chance to get some cool stuff that came out of somebody else’s. And they’re often right. This cool stuff could just as easily be listed on another site as well, but eBay is the first name that comes to mind. If any other competing site wants to truly leave a dent in eBay’s market share, it’s going to have to so some really effective marketing

eBays Wanting Its Sellers Back

By Chris Crum

Makes Feedback and Payment Policy Changes

Early last year, eBay inflicted some damaging policy changes that sent many sellers running for the hills. Now, they apparently are changing the rules to remove negative comments left by customers towards the sellers.

A couple months ago I talked to a number of eBay sellers, and all but one of them told me that eBay's feedback policy was their biggest frustration. It now seems that eBay has decided to hear the howls of disgust from its users that have been going on for the majority of the past year. Ecommerce Journal reports:

The move to change the Feedback policy was prompted by numerous requests made by the cross-border sellers who received negative comments from customers while there wasn’t actual fault with the merchants. Now eBay will be removing feedback if: the listing meets the Customs Requirements and/or the seller receives a negative or neutral Feedback comment, which references customs delays or customs fees. Merchants in turn are obliged to advise the buyers that import duties, taxes and charges are not included in the item price or shipping charges. These charges are the buyer’s responsibility.

There was also a lot of frustration about eBay's payment policy. Many were enraged by the favoritism showed to eBay-owned PayPal. eBay will reportedly now be adding Moneybookers and PayMate as acceptable methods of payment starting next month.

eBay users have been quite vocal in their displeasure with the famous auction site. It seems unlikely that many of them that have been so passionate will be willing to go back to eBay just because they finally acknowledged these issues. But the brand power that eBay carries does pull a lot of weight. Are you (or were you) an eBay seller?

Microsoft Releases Tag, Its Second iPhone Application

by Robin Wauters on January 8, 2009


At CES, Microsoft has introduced its second iPhone app after dipping its toe with the release of Seadragon Mobile last month. The name of the application is Microsoft Tag, and it enables users to instantly access mobile content, videos, music, contact information, maps, social networks, promotions, etc. simply by pointing the device’s camera to a custom tag.

If this makes you think about the principle behind QR codes, you’re not the only one. Like QR codes, Microsoft Tags are unique two-dimensial codes that can be used to open URLs or multimedia files. The big difference is the tech behind it: Microsoft Tag is based on a whole new technology developed in-house by Microsoft Research called High Capacity Color Barcodes (HCCBs), and offers a significant twist.

Microsoft Tags are smaller than QR codes and uses triangle shapes and colors to store data instead of square pixels. Actually, Microsoft Tags doesn’t actually store any information, except for a unique ID which can fetch more data stored on Microsoft servers. This allows way more information to be attached to tags than with QR codes.

Microsoft Tags are available for the iPhone as well as Windows Mobile, J2ME, Blackberry, and Symbian S60 phones. The application can be accessed by visiting Gettag.mobi using your mobile phone browser; for the iPhone, search for ‘Tag Reader’ in the App Store.

Microsoft Tag: Microsofts own 2D barcode



12 iPhone 3G Tricks That You Might Have Not Known

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I was really pleased to see some examples of real life ads that are currently making money as well.

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Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

The Wheel Reinvented.
The MacBook Wheel, a revolutionary new laptop that does away with the keyboard. They say
dont reinvent the wheel so why has Apple Reinvented it



Find The Latest iPhones

The VideoGames Finder

Google Explains Click Fraud

Click fraud is a very complex issue. Unfortunately, much of the information available has been misinterpreted due to that complexity. In this video, Shuman Ghosemajumder of Google gives some information that will hopefully clear up that gray area.

For starters, click fraud is driven by 2 major incentives:

1. Attacking advertisers - when an advertiser tries to hide one of his competitors
2. Inflating affiliates - when an AdSense publisher tries to fraudulently increase his own revenue by generating false clicks

Methods of click fraud stem from simplistic techniques to sophisticated techniques. Simplistic methods include manual clicks such as when a fraudster personally clicks ads on his own computer. It gets a little more sophisticated when a fraudster organizes botnets and uses them for click fraud. Click farms, which consist of individuals or organizations that try to hire people to click on ads continuously, fall somewhere in the middle of the simple and sophisticated click fraud techniques.

Shuman does point out that: “the impact of invalid clicks at Google is minimal.”

Google detects click fraud through simple rules and statistical anomaly detection. Google’s simple rules consist of certain rules they have already defined as what they classify as an invalid click. Since some simple rules can be easily broken, statistical anomaly detection is more effective because it looks at specific activities on websites and compares the expected behavior to the observed behavior. This data gives Google a better understanding of how to detect invalid clicks.

For advertisers wanting to take proactive measures to prevent click fraud, Shuman advises keeping the return on investment (ROI) as the central focus. Research and gather as much data as possible, test everything, and track all results. If you apply these actions and your ROI drops for no reason, you have a good reason to suspect undetected click fraud and should file a claim.

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