Archive for May, 2008

Posted on May 31, 2008 - by Nate

3 posts = 77 unique hits.

My buddy Ben Beck who helps run teleTagg and a couple other marketing outlets with me at Projective Marketing, did something yesterday that worked surprisingly well. It was a somewhat unintentional traffic driver of sorts. He was Reading at Gigaom.com about the new Google Earth application that will most likely be replacing Google maps in the near future. So, he posted a comment about it saying that he was using the Google Maps feature for the digital signage network at teleTagg and he placed the URL in the comment itself.

He posted to three different blog entries on the subject with very similar content. The result: 77 unique hits from Gigaom alone yesterday. Yes, unsustainable, but quite interesting for the amount of web traffic coming to Gigaom. It’s interesting to see the spike in traffic to teleTagg. It just goes way up. Most of the hits were from Gigaom. Not too exciting, but something worth posting. Thanks Gigaom.

Posted on May 30, 2008 - by Nate

What’s in a Keyword? Everything.

Do you remember the old rhetoric, “what’s in a name?….Everything!” A truism like that will not fade. It’s the same with today, except with keywords. When it comes to searching, it’s all about the keywords, honey. There ain’t nothing more important than relevant, keyword-rich, content, that webcrawlers and people both enjoy.

So, figure out what people are searching for in Google Trends or something similar. Or, go to Google Adwords and search for keywords there and find what type are being searched and who is searching for them. Once obtained, this information can be very valuable to any individual wishing to make a presence on the internets.

Now, let’s talk about these “key phrases.” You may say the exact precise key phrase or keyword over and over again in your blog entries, but so what. If you simply repeat the same phrase over and over, human beings aren’t going to want to read you. Worst yet, if you’re utilizing and placing keywords without putting in relevant hyperlinks (and, I mean relevant hyperlinks), then your keyword placement was in vain. So, in your attempts to increase page rank, make sure you’re sticking to the basics of optimization.

The Future of Keywords.

Who knows what will be in store for the future of the keyword. I think we are hitting an age when advertising and communication will all be done via a wireless connection on mobile PDAs. This is just a personal opinion. I predict that keywords via SMS will have just as much sway as standard keywords. Google Mobile is a great example of this. I love it. It’s such a great resource. Yes, short code keywords will continue to be a great resource but also a great cost for consumers.

We are, sadly enough, a society of piecemeal eaters when it comes to information. This is why companies such as Twitter have made such an immediate impact on the economy. Keywords are like political soundbites. They sound cool, but are they more than just fluff? I submit no. Because in the world of the keyword, people are all about short, sweet, and to the point. Even if the Google search bar were an inch longer, I still don’t think I’d fill it up with text. Keywords, and key phrases are so important. Let’s not forget. Happy Keyword placement everyone!

P.S. Can you tell how much keyword hyperlinking I tried to place in this post?

Posted on May 29, 2008 - by Nate

Taxi Digital Signage.

When it comes to riding in taxi cabs, I’m a foreigner. I think I did it once when a friend of mine was desperate to go to the mall with his girlfriend. As for me, I’d rather walk. I guess that just shows my frugality (or cheapness, whichever you prefer). Taxis, however, are a very highly utilized form of transportation, especially for the more affluent. Take the following statistics for instance:

• New York City has 240 million high income passengers per year.
• Those passengers gross over $1.8 billion (with a “B”) annually.

That’s a whole lot of clams! Now, let’s think for a moment about the possibilities for taxi advertising. We see ads on the top of taxis. But what about advertisements for the paying customer inside? This is where taxi digital signage will be so effective. Think for a minute of a small LCD placed strategically behind the headrest of the front seat of the taxi. Let’s hook that puppy up to an internet powered digital signage network. Now we’ve got something powerful.

Here’s the best part. These high profile execs riding in the cabs will also be able to mooch free wireless from the aircard powering the signage. The internet in this case is also supported by advertising. Boyah!

Taxi GPS
Wireless GPS devices also offer the cab drivers navigation and real-time traffic reports. Can you think of the benefits here? Of course, as the cost of gas continues to increase, this feature alone can save the cabbies boatloads over the annual aggregate. A Taxi GPS system also offers the taxi company tracking and time management tools for both drivers and vehicles.

Taxi signage may not be a new concept, but it can be implemented easily and effectively as a way for taxi, digital signage, and advertising companies to increase their revenues. You can advertise on such a network, or establish your own.

Posted on May 28, 2008 - by Nate

Die Twitter, DIE!!

I just read a super duper interesting article on All Things SEM. It talked about the viral, yet non-sustaining nature Twitter has created. Among the reasons for Twitter’s eventual demise are the following

1. Twits are not valuable (after writing that sentence, I laughed…so true! The less Twits the better). The argument is that posts to Twitter, although entertaining, do not offer anything of value for the consumer reading them.
2. Twits are transient. Emails give you a solid way to keep and communicate. Blogs allow you to come and go as you please and to get information by searching in a search engine. Twits on the other hand are too short for anything relevant and can be easily bumped and therefore unseen by other readers because of the next batch of Twits posted.
3. 140 characters isn’t enough to say anything relevant anyway. When you have to send 20 SMS text messages to get your point across, it ain’t worth it!
4. It’s a waste of time. You can find yourself going through ridiculous amounts of Twits and not realizing you wasted over two hours. The sad thing is that during that time you were reading, but nothing of consequence was in anything you read.
5. Too many people. It’s impossible to keep up with everyone on there once the numbers get large enough. The argument is that, once the crowd talking gets large enough, you’ll only really pay attention to those you associated with previous to Twitter anyway. Too many people in a conversation will make you disinterested.
6. You’ve a higher chance of being ignored when you post a response on Twitter than you do on a blog. This may be partly due to the aforementioned reasons. Whatever the reason, one way conversations simply about what you’re doing gets old.

Now, I can see from Marios’ point of view why these things may be true. I want to address a couple of them though and talk about how I think Twitter is beneficial. First, it’s viral and addictive. He gives the reason that it’s a waste of time. Well, so is television and 99% of what’s online. It doesn’t mean companies have not found a way to monetize those digital media mediums. I know plenty of people who waste hours a day on Facebook and yet Facebook is still worth billions according to investors. So, if “time wasting” on the consumers’ side means “lack of value” on the business side, we’re all in big trouble.

Second, too many people on there may be an issue, but it’s great for Twitter. Google released an article sometime ago where they talked about traffic being power. The more eyes you have looking at your wares, the greater chance you have for conversion and revenue.

Finally, just think for a second about viral, waste of time activities where money is being made. I wrote an article a while back about Twitter’s advertising testing. If they find a way to get people connected virally and use that virality to serve up some ads in the process, then it’s genius! Who knows, maybe Marios is right and maybe the model is not sustainable. Only time will tell if the Twits will last.

Posted on May 27, 2008 - by Nate

Windows Mobile.

In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king. Well, apparently in the land of mobile, Microsoft is touting 50% growth of their new Mobile OS.

Although in the face of stiff competitors like Apple’s iPhone, Symbian, and Research in Motion, Microsoft is not only hopeful, but they seem super confident.

“Fifty percent growth is the minimum,” said Eddie Wu, Microsoft’s managing director for embedded devices in Asia, in an interview with Reuters.

Wu’s remarks are consistent with previous Microsoft statements about the state of its Windows Mobile business. The company in its most recent quarterly report said that Windows Mobile sales are growing as a result of “increased market demand for phone-enabled devices and Windows Embedded operating systems.”

Wu told Reuters that Microsoft expects to sell 20 million Windows Mobile licenses in its current fiscal year, which ends in June. It sold 11 million units in the previous fiscal year.

Perhaps one of the reasons Microsoft is touting so much is because of their already available integration with online media formats via Internet Explorer Mobile. Adobe programs such as Flash Lite will be supported partially due to the lack of sparks over Silverlight. Microsoft is also rolling out their copy of Flash, Silverlight, in mobile format. Silverlight is expected to be available on mobile devices by the fourth quarter of this year.

Microsoft also touts a new zoom feature which will make mobile web navigation much easier.

Posted on May 24, 2008 - by Nate

Microsoft Photosynth and the Integration of Social Media.

Man, technology is so dang cool. I believe in the near future, we’ll be able to take virtual tours of places around the world we have never been just because people have been there and the data will have been collected. The following videos show the realization of this idea coming to life.
Microfish anyone? I mean, seriously, this technology is taking the necessity for microfish completely out.

In addition, I would also just like to say a little about Social Media. It’s great for networking, but I think something like this is much more beneficial to society. Something that provides an experience for other users who’ve not been able to go to a particular site. How awesome!

And finally, this has a myriad of applications including it’s use in photobooths. I’m excited to see what happens in the future with regards to this. Virtual tours? Yes. Exciting.

Posted on May 22, 2008 - by Nate

Digital Signage Goes to the Movies!

Digital Signage has just gone to the movies. Well, it was only a matter of time before digital signage made it into the theaters’ menu boards. But, if the sales lift is significant enough, It would be well worth it to place multiple displays in such a high traffic location.

Beaver Solutions has provided a digital signage solution for a £30m cinema development.

It has installed 47x 42in Sanyo LCD screens in the new 12-screen Showcase Cinema De Lux (CDL), which opened on Friday May 16 within the Westfield Shopping Centre in Derby.

The sceeens are used to display content for the box office, concessions stands and movie posters throughout the cinema. They are mounted using Vogel brackets, in landscape and portrait positions and the RGB signal is delivered to the screens using structured cabling with Scion Pro9000 transmitters and recievers. The content is dynamic, interchangeable and independent on all 47 screens and six projectors, providing a flexible signage network.

The content for the screens is managed by Beaver Solutions using Scala InfoChannel 5, It has been produced in-house by Beaver Solutions, who worked closely with Showcase CDL to promote the brand using high definition videos of the concession products.

If you were to run the numbers on a signage system such as this, it may be fairly profitable. For instance, if the 47 screens give a sales increase of 2% or less, it would make the investment over the aggregate, due to economies of scale, much more inviting for the theater location. The difficult thing is determining if they WOULD in fact provide a sales lift. And if they do provide a sales lift, is it enough to warrant purchasing 47 flat screen LCD televisions. A Digital Signage ROI Calculator may help determine whether or not this would be the case. In addition, I’ve previously posted about digital signage ROI measurement with it’s relation to mobile devices.

Posted on May 21, 2008 - by Nate

Link Prosititution: doFollow, noFollow, and the Selling of Back Links.

I remember watching an episode of Sienfeld where George is driving around New York looking for a place to park. I can’t remember who was with him, but whoever it was suggested that he just find a paid parking space. George jabbed back with, “that’s like prostitution. Why would I pay for something I could get for free if I just apply myself.” This applies well to backlinks to your website.

Do Work Son

I recently posted an article about the benefit of posting comments to blogs. In the article I spoke of the necessity of creating as many backlinks as possible for the spiders to pick up. This is where reading, and posting relevant content to high profile blogs becomes important. This is where the work is. So, if you’re interested in increasing your site’s rank on the major search engines, then start commenting. There is one problem, however. If the site you’re commenting on does not allow noFollow links. If this is the case, the spiders will not be able to archive your site’s URL in the search engine. This is a problem.

doFollow vs. noFollow

dofollow
A website can direct a search engine spider to follow a link that appears on it. The idea being that the target website’s ranking will influence the website indexed. dofollow attribute values are most often used on user generated sites whose traffic is not super high.

nofollow
A website can direct a search engine spider not to follow a link that appears on it. The idea being that the target website’s ranking will not influence the website indexed. nofollow attribute values are most often used on sites with user generated content, like user comments and blogs.

So, what can you do about noFollow links? Nothing really. You can try to avoid them as much as possible. How do you know if a site has a noFollow plugin installed? Well, if it’s a super high traffic blog, chances are it does. Some of the backlink trackers show whether or not the site that is linked to you has a noFollow plugin installed.

The sad thing is that this usually does not change the fact that these high traffic sites still get just as many spamming messages sent to their comments folder. However, it does change the fact that your website will not be linked to the site you’ve posted on. In fact, as I was thinking about all this I just happened to read an article yesterday by Brian Chappell outlining the problem with purchasing links perfectly (I call this link prostitution).

The following are 9 reasons you should be worried if you are buying links:

1. You are buying links through a network

2. You are buying links in chunks, 3-5 at a time on one page.

3. You are buying all your links on sidebar, footer locations.

4. Your entire niche buys links.

5. Your site sucks, as in no one in there right mind would naturally link to you.

6. All of your links have perfectly, articulated anchor text that simply looks fake.

7. You are not a 300+ Million dollar brand name.

8. You are doing really, really well in the SERPS, and rank in the top spot for a majority of the money terms.

9. 70+ % of your sites traffic comes from Google organic results

So, while buying links may be unnecessary, link exchanging and blog commenting is very necessary. It’s just super important that you make it effective by ensuring the site you are on allows doFollow backlinks. Good luck and happy SEO blogging.

Posted on May 20, 2008 - by Nate

Using Comments on Blogs to Improve Page Rank.

I did some searching on this lately to see if it’s legit. Sho nuff! So, here’s the skinny… So, you want to improve your page rank in Google, Yahoo, Alexa? This is one of the best and fastest ways to do it imaginable.

1. Simply subscribe to RSS feeds in a reader. I’m currently subscribed to approximately 180 of the highest ranked blogs and websites. You can use Google, Firefox, or a myriad of others. I use Google. Because I have a Google account. You can view as many feeds as you want from one location on your feed reader. It’s nice, plus it allows you to more simply pick and choose which ones you would like to post comments to. The links take you directly to the individual posts as well.

2. The sites have to allow DoFollow links back to your site (a needed URL). This means the comments are linkable. I personally don’t worry about sites where I have to login to place a comment or that don’t allow my name to be linkable with my URL when I post the comment. This is totally pointless to me. First, I already have enough login accounts that I have a hard enough time as it is keeping track of all of them.

3. Read, and post RELEVANT comments to high profile blogs. This certainly does mean relevant. Don’t send spyders out, don’t spam, put irrelevant links in posts, or simply say negative things. Be an actual part of the online conversation that is going on through the blogosphere. It can be fun. As I do it, I learn something new every single day (usually several things). Most of the highest ranked bloggers can see through spam anyways and they’ll monitor you. So, simply don’t do it.

KongTechnology puts it simply,

Blogging is like making friends on the Internet. You go to other people’s blogs, read posts, leave meaningful comments, and learn from them at the same time. If you find yourself coming back to the same blogs more than once, you can subscribe to their RSS feeds, make friends, collaborate and network with them.

Now that you recognize the importance of leaving meaningful comments on other people blogs, you will need to find blogs which allow dofollow links in comments. I am not going to elaborate why it’s the best to comment on blogs which allow dofollow links, but it’s sufficient to say that with dofollow links to your blog, it will help you improve your PageRank tremendously!

As you do this consistently, your page rank will slowly increase. This is not some “get ‘link’ rich quick scheme.” But, over time, you will establish a larger volume of links coming back to your site. So, comment away. If you’d like a list of the top blogs I use that allow backlink URLs, you can visit The Top 100 Blogs.

Posted on May 20, 2008 - by Nate

Sticking Out Like a Sore Wienie.

I’m overwhelmed. Honestly. There is so much online content being shoved at us and somehow we’re expected to keep up with it all. Many of, if not all of us, have resorted to some sort of piecemeal approach to information upload to our tiny cerebrals. I mean, I’m subscribed to approximately 140 RSS feeds. So what do I do? I scan, looking for relevant content or something humorous. Sometimes standing out is the most important thing. If you’re more eccentric, bizarre, or important, you may get some hits: your ten seconds of fame, so to speak. But if not, you could be left to your own devices forever.

Put yourself out there.

I chose to name the title of this post “Sticking Out Like a Sore Wienie” for a couple of reasons.

1. Shock Value.
2. I recently read an article about marketing with a wienie (incidentally, it was Walt Disney’s idea—a brilliant one at that).
3. You’ve got to stick yourself out there, make yourself vulnerable, risk something.

That said, there are many types of traditional approaches that may work.

Walt Disney’s Wienie

After Disney and his Engineers had created the GE “Carousel of Progress” for the 1964 World’s Fair, Walt brought in a group of GE execs to see the show firsthand before it was available to the public. The executives were thrilled. Walt, however, wanted to nail them to the wall. So, he did something a little bizarre. He piped, “It doesn’t have a wienie! Come back in a couple weeks and I’ll show you.”

If you heard Walt Disney say that, you’d probably be back too. A week later the puzzled execs returned again to see a show, almost identical to the first version - with one exception: Walt had added a comical audio-animatronic dog with a wagging tail to each scene.

Genius! They were sold.

Marketing to the Digital Gen

Digital Advertising is much the same way. You have to stick out, be memorable, do something different, interesting and exciting. Gone are the relic advertisements of the past. Going digital means using content in ways never before utilized. Using projective marketing tactics, gives consumers a reason to believe. I personally feel marketing over the next ten years will be comprised of three integrated and selective platforms.

1. Internet. Search Engine Optimizers, Affiliate Marketers, and Pay Per Click specialists all have a place in this world. All have contributed and will continue to contribute to the vast evolving world of digital advertising.

2. Digital Signage. Also known as Narrowcasting or Out-of-Home Advertising, Digital Signage is the billboard of the future. Utilizing LCDs, Projectors, Plasmas and other digital media, Digital Signage is quickly becoming a powerful medium in bringing your message to the end consumer.

3. Mobile. We have not even begun to tap this market. Not even close. Mobile marketing will become a very powerful way for individuals and audiences to engage with you. In addition, when mobile campaigns are integrated with the other forms of digital media, including digital signage and internet, powerful, targeted campaigns can easily take place.

Finding a fail-proof method of getting recognized with the barrage of information and literature flooding the channels of media is not easy. So, find your wienie. As you do, stick it out there, make it known and get noticed.