| LED Digest 1489: Defamation and the Internet |
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================================================== bCentral Daily Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising" ================================================== List Moderator: Supported by: Adam Audette bCentral ................................................. January 2, 2003 Digest #1489 ................................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= -=Predictions for 2003=- ~ Will Bontrager "...in order to survive as a site selling products, those products will need to be listed at Froogle." ~ Janet Attard "[Our company] recently ran a survey..." -=Search Engines & Frames=- ~ Shari Thurow "...sites save considerable time and expense [with] search-engine friendly design templates..." -=Defamation and the Internet=- ~ Jill Whalen "I thought it was Al Gore [who invented the Internet]?" ~ Donald Nelson "...consider the issue from the point of view of victims of defamation." ==== BILLBOARD =================== -=Freelancing=- ~ Brian Douglas -=How to Create HTML Email?=- ~ Derek Andrews ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Will Bontrager Subject: 2003 Predictions > Froogle is going to shake up affiliate marketing > more than anybody dares to speculate today. - Edwin Hayward, Daily 1487 With a slogan like "All the world's products in one place" and a record of accomplishment, you may be right. How much affiliates will feel the pinch will probably depend more on how much the Froogle database is consulted than on the completeness of the database itself. Other avenues of finding products will still exist. If the product searching public will flock to Froogle like the Internet searching public now flocks to Google, then I expect affiliate marketing will need to redefine itself, at least in part, or suffer a decline. When affiliates no longer get viable returns, they'll quit. When they quit, distributors have lost a sales channel. Marketers may decide it is prudent to offer additional incentives to keep affiliate channels open, or to find new channels. I don't claim to be a marketer. I'm not. I'm a programmer. But willmaster.com has been in business since 1998 and some marketing concepts have settled into my consciousness. It seems to me that in order to survive as an Internet web site selling products, those products will need to be listed at Froogle. Probably not now, but I expect soon, Froogle listed products will have a huge marketing advantage over products not in their database. Therefore, our Master Series CGI programs will be listed in Froogle. And soon. The first product feed is on their servers, as of this writing, but not yet in their database. Froogle product feeds require a tab-delimited database with specific fields. This will be an easy task for some. For others, the idea may be somewhat daunting. To help those who want it, I wrote a CGI program to generate the files Froogle requires for product feeds. An installation is at www.willmaster.com/master/generator/frooglefile/frooglefile.shtml and it's free to use. Product records can be edited. And the local data file can be kept on our servers up to six months, allowing you to generate a new file whenever you need to feed the Froogle. Check your products. They may be on Froogle already. Type in your domain name and see what comes up. If you see your products listed, chances are you would like to change the listing text, which was the case for our software listings. Froogle product feeds could fix that. If you sell products on your site, see froogle.google.com/froogle/merchants.html [cut & paste this link]. When you have your username, feel free to use our generator to create product feed files. Will Bontrager www.willmaster.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Janet Attard Subject: 2003 predictions Business Know-How recently ran a survey to find out how small businessess (mostly microenterprises) viewed the future. The survey (which is still live) is here: www.businessknowhow.com/smallbizfeature/outlook2002fallsurvey.htm The results are posted real-time, so you can see the results in graph format immediately after taking the survey. If you just want to view the results, you can do so from this link: www.businessknowhow.com/smallbizfeature/outlook2002_fall_results.asp Janet Attard Business Know-How businessknowhow.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Shari Thurow Subject: Meaning of optimization Hi all-- First, I would like to wish all Daily Digest subscribers a pleasant holiday season. This is in response to Mr. Jacobs' post on optimization (issue 1487). As someone who has worked on sites ranging from small sites to large, dynamic sites that get over 6 million unique visits a month, I feel I can write intelligently on the topic of search engine optimization (SEO) for all types of sites. Mr. Jacobs and I disagree on what it means to optimize. I have always believed that if a site has been designed for search engine visibility from the onset, which is optimal, that those sites tend to do the best overall in terms of search engine visibility. (Along with having high quality content that your target audience is searching for.) For example, I worked on a division site of a major, huge accounting firm, one whose brand all readers would immediately recognize. The site's branding, of course, is outstanding, which is one of the main reasons the site has excellent link popularity. But a particular division's search engine visibility was practically non-existent. The problem wasn't that the site didn't contain quality content and targeted keywords. The problem was that the site design and server performance did not allow search engine spiders easy access to that information. Their competitor's sites did allow easy access to quality content, which is why their competitors fared better. No amount of workarounds was going to change that. Pay-for-inclusion (PFI) programs helped, but with a site of that magnitude, it can get quite expensive. And not all search engines offer this type of program. Pay-per-click programs can get quite expensive as well. I've worked on huge portal sites, including financial and medical sites. They also face similar problems. The ones that have an optimal site design and do not employ a bunch of workarounds always fare better overall. If other SEOs do not experience this, I am rather surprised. Many sites save considerable time and expense if they only had search-engine friendly design templates and keyword-rich copy. As an online marketer, I have to work with other designers and programmers all of the time. Fortunately, I and others at our firm have the background in design and usability that few other SEO companies have. Oh, since this came up in a previous Daily Digest, we keep a list of helpful links on our site. Our list of usability links are at: www.grantasticdesigns.com/usabilitylinks.html Many of these web sites have free newsletters. Many of them offer conferences and training at reasonable prices. Jared Spool is one of my favorite usability experts. If you cannot afford to attend any of his conferences, you can purchase his conference proceedings at a reasonable price. Many usabililty experts have published books as well, books that are available on their site and Amazon.com. Again, I hope you are all having a pleasant holiday season. Cheers! Take care, Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director www.grantasticdesigns.com/tips.html ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Jill Whalen Subject: Defamation > If anyone can be considered to have invented > the Internet as we know it today it is probably... > Tim Berners-Lee. - Geoff Marshall, Daily 1488 I thought it was Al Gore? <grin> Jill Whalen www.highrankings.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Donald Nelson Subject: Defamation Dear All, I noticed that most of the posts on this subject seemed to be worrying about over-regulation of the Internet, and the rights of the content provider and the possible liabilities that they face from litigation. But we also have to consider the issue from the point of view of victims of defamation. Recently some friends of mine, doing social service in a former communist country (with a very shaky human rights record) were slandered by a website run by that country's security services. The fact that an Australian court dealt with a case originating in another courntry may actually be helpful in such instances, as a web publisher, who may be all powerful in his or her own country, could face litigation in another country. Sincerely, Donald Nelson www.a1-optimization.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Brian Douglas Subject: Freelance > Now the problem is either these [freelance listing] > sites charge [fees] which are unaffordable for individual > developers and the whole benefit is taken by big > established companies. - DS Sehdev, Daily 1487 I somewhat agree with your point about these freelance sites -- the fees can be high. However, if a person is serious about doing this (design, etc.) as a business (instead of a "side job"), then I truly believe that these fees become very reasonable. And, the fees also help to weed out the majority of the unprofessional community out there -- who are just trying to get in and make a quick buck and don't care about things like customer service and / or commitment. I remember back when elance.com was free -- people were under-pricing everything (by hundreds or thousands of dollars in some cases). And, you might be bidding against 300 people who were claiming to be professionals -- yet promising to do things like create logos for Fortune 100 companies for only $50 (or less in many instances). As a designer myself, I belong to several regional and national business organizations. And, one of the first things you learn when you join one of these organizations is to NOT DEVALUE THE PRODUCT!!! The "product" in this case is professional design. Brian Douglas TradeShowJoe.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Derek Andrews Subject: Flashy email > I have been trying to create flashy email to send > to my client list for some time. But whenever I put > HTML in email it simply doesn't work. - Franko Mandato, Daily 1485 If you are simply copying HTML code and pasting it into a 'regular' email, that won't work. I don't know what email program you use, but in Netscape I have to change the preferences to select the HTML editor, rather than the plain text editor. (I imagine there must be something in the email header to tell the recipient how to display it.) However, I never use HTML email. Personally I detest it, especially if it uses images. As a dial-up user, this can severely impact download times, and images cannot be accessed once I have gone offline. I really have to want to read the message to bother with it. Incoming mail of this nature usually gets deleted or bounced, and I generally unsubscribe from mailing lists that don't offer a sensible plain text alternative. I also get the occasional HTML email that won't even render in anything but the latest browser! There are a few people who use HTML sensibly for formatting or hyperlinks to bookmarks -- this improves the readability and usability of the message, and I have no problem with that. But think carefully about your clients reaction if they receive a message that annoys them by its non-functionality. Plain text rules, ok! Derek Andrews, woodturner www.sunrisewoodcrafts.ns.ca ------------------------------------------------------- The bCentral Daily Digest is edited by a third party moderator, Adam Audette. As such, bCentral does not control which postings are accepted into the digest for publication. The contents of the digest do not necessarily reflect the opinions of bCentral, Adam Audette, or his company, Adventive. bCentral, Audette, and Adventive make no warranties, either expressed or implied, about the truth or accuracy of the contents of the bCentral Daily Digest. |
