| LED Digest 2210: Marketing with MySpace |
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10 posts on 5 topics, including new discussions on MySpace for Marketing, Robots.txt for European Sites, Fixed vs Fluid, and more... ================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. July 25, 2006 Issue no. 2210 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== MySpace for Marketing ==-- ~ John Smart "...questions remain about the effectiveness of advertising on social-networking sites..." <Moderator Comment> "Anybody else marketing via MySpace?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Robots.txt for European Sites ==-- ~ Martijn Koster "The robots.txt file is primarily aimed at automated parsing..." ~ Nathan Holley "Why is it that English has become the 'Language of the Web'?" --== Fixed Width vs Fluid Web Sites ==-- ~ Mary Lee "A pile up can be prevented with CSS. Use of floating divs will correct that problem." ~ Peter D'Aprix "...the designer must decided, based on the goals of the site itself, which will work best..." --== Reciprocal Linking ==-- ~ David Spahr "I don't care if people reciprocate. If the link is good it is good. Period." ~ Michael Linehan "...networking remains [powerful for] finding new clients and building relationships..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Smart Framing ==-- ~ Kathryn Martyn Smith ~ Lew Vividere ========== NEW =================================== From: John Smart Subject: New Post - MySpace Marketing We have a client who is building a site in competition to MySpace, and have been asked by other clients if they should advertise on MySpace (I would have thought that you could only market narcotics and lap dancing on MySpace, but my nieces tell me I am officially an Old Fart now, so what do I know?) In Tech Dirt today the following was posted by Carlo of the 'Ten Hut' Department. I do not know how to validate these numbers, but in my experience tech dirt is usually on the ball: ------------------------ "The US Army raised some eyebrows a few years ago when it released its own video game in an attempt to turn gamers into new recruits. While the effectiveness of the move is debateable, it does show that the military has some understanding it's got to reach out to young people in new ways, in places and activities where they spend their time. It's hardly surprising, then, to see the Marines on MySpace, where its profile has attracted more than 12,000 friends. "Plenty of advertisers have taken similar steps, getting users to buddy up to their brands in social-networking sites, so it's not as if this is uncharted territory. But just as questions remain about the effectiveness of advertising on social-networking sites, it's not clear just how well the MySpace recruiting is going for the Marines: despite attracting all those friends, just 430 people have contacted a recruiter through the site in 5 months, with just 170 of them considered prospective recruits." http://techdirt.com/articles/20060724/0852206.shtml ------------------------ John Smart InternetDesign.com - A Human Touch in a Digital World <Moderator Comment> Anybody else marketing via MySpace? I'd be interested in hearing your experiences. More than likely, though, this is an excercise for the big corporations. The ones with teams of "myspace specialists." So anyone at Coca-Cola wanna share? :-) But maybe it's not just for huge companies. I just learned with a quick search that entrepreneurs are using MySpace for marketing, too: http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/418/marketing-with-myspacecom/ Seems like the MySpace demographic (teeming with teens) lends itself to certain types of products / services. Like music bands. I'm not sure about this though (quoted from the blog above): "It could be as simple as creating a widget or a song, or a video or an image and attempt to "infect" the MySpace community with it." Hmm. So for those who aren't part of Fortune 500 companies using MySpace for business, how have you infected the community? So to speak. Seriously - has it benefited your business? ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Martijn Koster Subject: robots.txt for pan-Euro sites > The robots.txt file uses two English words, is very simple in > structure, and it would not make good sense to use a different > language... the definitive person to discuss this with would be > Martijn Koster, the person who maintains the robotstxt.org site. - Tom Aman, LED 2209 The phrases "user-agent" and "disallow" in robots.txt are English, just like similar phrases in HTTP. The robots.txt file is primarily aimed at automated parsing, so localisation is pointless, would generate huge barriers for implementors, and would open a huge can of worms because language support is always hard and undergoing constant change. As for the URLs, internationalisation of URLs is a large and complex topic. Just about all existing software that deals with URLs works on the assumption that a URL is transcribed to ASCII characters. Robots.txt is no different there. Martijn Koster http://www.robotstxt.org/ -------- new post - related topic -------- From: Nathan Holley Subject: Internationalization of URLs [was: robots.txt...] > The use of English words makes the file easy to read. > If one desires to make the file language-independent, > then it would make more sense to use symbols. - Tom Aman, LED 2209 This hints at a very interesting issue, one that's a bit polemical online: the internationalization of URLs, file names, HTML, etc. Why is it that English has become the "Language of the Web?" Why isn't the Web multilingual in URL / coding structure, the way it's multilingual in nearly every other way? But you may be asking yourself, who cares? Why does it matter? I can think of a few reasons why it matters. But for a well-researched list, I'll direct you here: http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/groups/mml/people/mduerst/urli18n.1996.html Quoting from the above: ---------------------- * URLs are more or less mnemonic, and are designed to be mnemotic. In some cases, this results from the fact that some schemes more or less directly represent notations such as domain names, file names, and user names that are themselves mostly mnemonic. In other cases, the above are specifically arranged to result in self-speaking and easily memorizable URLs. * Memorizable and self-speaking URLs are a very important competitive advantage on the internet, as can be seen from problems with domain name reservations. * URLs are, for the absolutely overwhelming majority, interpreted as ASCII character strings, i.e. despite the fact that this is not specified in the URL definition, there is a one-to-one correspondence between octet values and meaningful ASCII characters. * URLs are used not only among computers, but in daily life on paper. The main places today are the press and name cards. * The fact that only English and very few other languages can be directly represented in URLs (assuming ASCII interpretation) gives a competitive disadvantage to most users worldwide. * Also, there is the problem of identification. Only English (+a few other languages') users find their names, the names of their companies, and so on, in URLs as they are used to see them in daily life. ---------------------- Honestly, I'm not sold on the idea of internationalization, even while I can understand these points. But it does bring up an interesting discussion. Looking forward to other thoughts here- Nathan Holley invisible online since '95 -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Mary Lee Subject: Fixed width > If W3C had merely added a few features to HTML 4.01 > or XHTML 1.0, and skipped the CSS, you would be able > to everything CSS does but simpler and easier. But like > most things that are good, people can't resist tarting > them up to make them "better." - Allen Schaaf, LED 2209 I have to disagree with Allen. A pile up can be prevented with CSS. Use of Floating Divs will correct that problem. And there is a reason people are 'tarting' up CSS. It is much faster and gives you extensive control over your layout without bloating your pages. Look at my text on my site. You could not do that without CSS. There are so many things you can do with CSS that cannot be accomplished with HTML alone. I changed my site from HTML tables to CSS & my visitors and sales almost doubled. The reason? My site now loads very fast, whereas the previous HTML design was bloated and slow loading. On top of that if you will look at my source code you will see very little code and lots of text that those search engine bots eat up! After the switch to a CSS site, things were slow for a couple months as I dropped down in the search engines. I was concerned, but then my site shot up to the top of all the engines for lots of keywords and has remained steady there. In my opinion the CSS design has contributed greatly to increasing my business and my search engine rankings! Mary Lee Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games http://www.dinnerandamurder.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Peter Peter D'Aprix Subject: Fixed vs Fluid Our moderator wrote, > I received an email from an LEDer... wondering why > anyone would want a fixed width site, especially when > CSS and XHMTL allow for such clever fluid designs. I suspect that because the internet is such a fluid and constantly changing medium, practitioners try to nail down rigid rules and protocalls to give themselves some sense of design security as well as some sense of personal stability. A little more like driving a car down a road that is really a river that changes is course constantly, moves at its own speeds and where you sink up to your eyeballs when you get out of the car. Mark Twain could address that. How this affects fixed width or fluid width discussions is this. There should not be any rule about this. Deciding on fixed or fluid widths should be tagged solely to the what is best for any particular site, knowing that any decision will be a 49% to 51% process. I have never seen such compromise on benefit/problem factor to any decision as I have with web sites. What seems a good decision viewed from one direction, seems a bad one from another. Some sites for graphic purposes or programming purposes or both, need to have certain factors locked in. But others can exist quite comfortably with expansion / contraction as their make up. So, in conclusion, the designer must decided, based on the goals of the site itself, which will work best for the particular application. But then this is true of all aspects of any web site - it is the site and its requirements for functionality, usability, marketability, market space, etc. that should determine all choices made about it. Not some strict rules. Keep up the good work. Peter D'Aprix peter, daprix.com Skype: phdaprix -------- new post - new topic -------- From: David Spahr Subject: Reciprocal Linking > We use a tool called LinkSurvey.com to find them... > You have to visit those sites, review them, and log > the appropriate data... as well as their status as to > reciprocation offers. Prospective link partner sites > must publicly offer to reciprocate, otherwise they > are strictly off limits. - Dirk Johnson, LED 2209 People are apparently using "tools" like this to find me since I get soooo many requests to link with different sites (Dirk included). Dirk was above boards in his approach (unlike most). I received a personal reply from him to my rejection. This almost never happens. I do respect that. Spammers never reply. Anyone who requests a link should actually visit the page and read the text at the top of the page before requesting a link. It says: "This site is for antique photography related and selected antique links only. I personally review every site on this list for relevance, content, and reputability and order them in a way that hopefully makes sense. It is my intention to make this the best antique photography links page on planet earth! Let me know if I have missed something important. See the email policy at the bottom of the page." 95% of all requests for link exchange I get show that they obviously have not been to the page or they would not ask. I wonder if they use these "tools" to find me and then just spam. All signs point to yes. They most always have already linked me to their crappy link farm and are holding my link for ransom. Sites like these do not usually have an easy way to find the link and do not have the time or expertise to add a good editorial comments about the site they are linking to. They are almost never cogently categorized or ordered. They do not receive a respectful %#^%*^ reply. I need their link like I need poison ivy. My link policy means what it says. I don't care if people reciprocate. If the link is good it is good. Period. Most all private sites see the obvious value of linking to me. Institutions and universities etc. often do not. Many do though. As it is, I have over 2000 inbound links to my site (over 90% unsolicited and unreciprocated). I have followed this policy and built this page over almost 10 years. It is fairly large but contains no junk. Google, MSN, and Yahoo have rewarded me with truly great rankings for what I do (using terms like "stereoviews" and "antique photography"). Thanks! David Spahr * Stereoviews.Com * Antique-Photography.com * Stereoviews.Info * -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Linking > Because what I have described is nothing more > than common sense marketing and branding. - Dirk Johnson, LED 2209 For me, this was a very telling sentence in Dirk Johnson's post. In some of my materials, I write, "It's not WEB marketing; it's MARKETING on the web." In other words, the key term is not "Web," it's "Marketing." People sometimes get a bit too caught up with that Web word and its implications of design and technology. But while people certainly may not buy because of poor design or tech, they don't buy because of them. People buy because of what you offer and the quality of your marketing. So in discussions on various Web topics, it may be useful to think of what they mean as 'marketing'. Seems to me that a valid take on Dirk's statement is that he is talking about a somewhat formalized form of networking. And networking - on or off the Web - remains for just about any business in any sector, one of the most powerful forms of finding new clients and building relationships with current clients. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Kathryn Martyn Subject: Smart framing > ... we have a Real Estate Site and need to embed > MLS Search results in our site so it appears that > they user is still at our site. - Pat Pierson, LED 2209 I didn't read previous digests, so this may have been suggested, but why not just use the iframe tag? That tag will input any page you want. Perhaps that won't work because you'd need to be logged in first to obtain access to MLS although there's probably a way to code that in without much trouble. You'll probably have better luck finding someone who can script it for you. I doubt you're going to need any new software. Try http://www.rentacoder.com. You describe what you want done, and people will post for the job. Rates are very reasonable; sometimes ridiculously so. You could even try posting for someone on http://www.craigslist.org in one or their Jobs categories. Just choose the city that is nearest you. Kathryn Martyn Smith, M.NLP Ending Emotional Eating, One Bite at a Time http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Lew Vividere Subject: Smart framing Isn't there still an issue with spiders seeing the content in a frame? I have avoided frames for the same reason I have been avoiding flash. It is my understanding that the spider sees the "outside" or "first" frame and ignores the rest of the content on the page. Might not be so important for yahoo.com as they are going to get a zillion visitors anyway and page content might not be as important as I don't see Yahoo.com in a top 10 spot when doing a Google search. Same with sites like Excite and Sony. I have been to all of these sites but never by going there as a result of a search. Lew Vividere ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Reason to rule but mercy to forgive: The first is the law, the last prerogative." - John Dryden |
