Healthy Blog Reviews

Did you know that WhitePages.com regularly ranks among the Top 50 web sites in the US for traffic? I didn’t but I guess that just shows that I don’t need to find many phone numbers. That kind of traffic though is a valuable asset and WhitePages.com is looking to take advantage of the push in local business information that has been led by Google’s Place Pages and other specific local business directories. paidContent.org tells us more WhitePages.com has given visitors the option to search for local businesses for almost a decade, although it has historically sent those queries to third-party sites. Starting Thursday, it’s taking those listings in-house and adding several features, including a “store locator,” which lets people find branches of national chains in their area. Since the beta has launched there has been some reason to believe that this is a good thing moving forward In an interview, Jason Milstead, WhitePage.com’s director of business search, said that the number of business searches on WhitePages.com has risen from about 13 to 14 million a month to more than 16 million a month since WhitePages.com launched a beta of the product in April. Ok, so you roll out a new internal product and magically your numbers shoot up just because of the sheer awesomeness of the product? Not likely. Being a bit of a usability nut I went to the site to see just what they are doing that might entice a visitor to take this service for a spin. Based on the graphics below that are prominently displayed on the business locator side of the page, I suspect that increase in traffic for the service is more about a lesson in site usability and promotion vs. an incredible new product that visitors decided they just have to use. WhitePages.com admits that revenue is off from its best days but is trying to see how it can capitalize on the interest in local business listings. It is introducing service to do this and aiming at some big players as competitors. [Services like] DealPop, which will be able to leverage the traffic that the listings bring to WhitePages.com—giving it an advantage over other daily deal services that have had to spend heavily on advertising in order to bring in users. “Groupon, LivingSocial had to build up that traffic from day one,” (Milstead) says. “They don’t have a business search product they’re integrating with.” While this is interesting it seems like WhitePages.com is waking up to the fact that while they have a lot of traffic they are not monetizing it as they could. As a result, they are taking an existing feature, bringing it in-house, and looking to capitalize. This is not unlike a lot of web properties who have watched competitors erode once dominant positions by providing more than just information. It’s hard to say just how much call there is for the many different deliveries of local business information that are all over the web. Consumers usually want a trusted source that doesn’t require a lot of hunting. Gee, sounds a lot like a company out of Mountain View, doesn’t it?

Tags: Business, daily, graphics, Jason Milstead, local-business, Local/Mobile, mountain, mountain-view, numbers, pages-com-logo, product, traffic, web-sites, White
Posted June 24, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

The Internet is amazing place. Only online can unicorns go in search of Candy Mountain , babies dance their hearts out, and cats can LOL . With the Internet we can connect with friends we haven’t spoken to in 20 years. And we can meet new amazing people every day. Because of all of these amazing things the Internet can do, it’s no surprise that many small business owners think the Internet can perform magic for their small business. However, what many fail to realize is often starting a business on the Internet can be more challenging than starting one off-line. It seems almost on a weekly basis I’m approached by a local small business to help build their Internet presence, and, every now and then, by an individual without a business that dreams of riches from the information superhighway. Both of these parties are looking for a simple solution to making money and think the Internet is their answer. Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet that can build a business or increase wealth. 3 Common Myths About Doing Business Online It’s cheap. I will admit that often times opening an off-line brick-and-mortar business can be costly and can result in higher overhead for long-term growth. However, if you are a budding Internet entrepreneur with absolutely no experience in web development, design, or marketing then you can expect to make a substantial initial investment to get your business started. I am a firm believer that you get what you pay for. There are many ways to start a business online for little money, but the probability of success is extremely slim because most of the cheap strategies rely on amateur labor and substandard services. It’s easy. If you build it, they will come only works in cheesy Kevin Costner films. Whether you are building a business on the Internet or off-line, you will be required to constantly market and promote your organization in order to grow. We see this attitude many times within the SEO community where business owners will build a website and automatically assume it’s a part of Google. Sophisticated SEO and Internet marketing firms spend millions a year to promote their clients’ businesses. Oftentimes an off-line business success is dependent on its location. However on the Internet, location is nonexistent. On the Internet, promotion can make or break a business. It’s highly lucrative. Most with experience will tell you that 95% of Internet startups fail with the first year of existence. Many of the 5% that survive barely generate enough revenue to keep the business self-sustaining. Very few are purchased as part of an acquisition. The truth is that most successful Internet entrepreneurs have failed dozens of times prior to making it big. It takes years of experience to understand what works and what doesn’t online. So now you see there is no magic secret to wealth on the Internet. Like all successful business endeavors it requires time and hard work. But in the end, whether you have succeeded or failed you’ll learn skills and gain experience that far surpass those that have never tried anything at all. Photo by Chris Walton Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Tags: barely-generate, Business, business-online, clients, internet, Internet Marketing, marketing, mountain, organization, rely-on-amateur, seo
Posted May 29, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

OK, it’s 2005. Imagine you are the reigning social media champ, MySpace. You are the number one social networking site and you get all the great press. It appears as if there was no way to stop you. You even get purchased for some serious scratch from one of the premier media companies in the world, News Corp. Sure there are some bothersome startups around like those kids over at Facebook but this is a done deal. You are the king of the mountain. What can go wrong? Fast forward 5 years. You are a social media also ran. You are white knuckling your existence. Those “kids” over at Facebook have not only passed you but they have basically made you obsolete. You are the butt of social media jokes and no self respecting person or company (unless you are promoting music) talks about their “presence” on your site. Ah, but there’s a glimmer of hope. Your hopelessly arrogant competition at Facebook has stuck its privacy foot in its mouth and just about every other orifice it can find. Its privacy made it popular but Facebook has gone and pulled the carpet out from underneath its trusted users by making everything public unless you have the guidance to undo the web of privacy options. What do you do? Well if you are MySpace you go ahead and tout yourself as the social network where privacy matters! As Mashable reports Facebook is under fire of late as members threaten a mass exodus and NYU students attempt to build an alternative Facebook. Today MySpace is taking its own jab at Facebook by announcing that the social networking site will soon make the default setting for updates “friends only.” This default privacy change will affect all users who “previously had any granular page setting to ‘friends only,’” but can easily be changed. The change is part of MySpace’s new public commitment to privacy. The once-dominant social network’s stated goal is to simplify settings and let users more clearly post updates publicly, to friends only, or publicly to anyone 18 or over. So is this sheer coincidence, utter brilliance or quiet desperation? Probably a little of all of them but I think desperation is in the lead. These “changes” have been discussed in a blog post by MySpace co-president Mike Jones but guess what? They won’t actually be available for a few weeks. Well, either they figure that we are dumb as dirt and won’t see the opportunistic media play that is not supported by reality or they just got real lucky with this new “policy” over at MySpace. Hmmmmm, I wonder which one it is? As I write this I wonder if this was even worth the time to mention. Maybe it shows just how lame this industry can be and that’s what makes it interesting. Either that or in the deep recesses of everyone’s minds, even those over at MySpace, we hope that there will someday be an alternative to Facebook because the whole “ask for forgiveness, rather than permission” policy of Facebook is growing old…..real old. Can anyone say Diaspora ?

Tags: facebook, industry, made-it-popular, mountain, Social, social-networking, time
Posted May 17, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

The Adobe v. Apple tussle is now becoming an all out battle. Steve Jobs raised the bar recently with his attack on Adobe which surprised many by its level of intensity. We’re not completely sure why there is a serious bee in Jobs’ bonnet but its there for sure. With the ball firmly in Adobe’s court we find today from Engadget that Adobe is ready to play hardball. They are running the following ad on sites (Engadget included) Take that, Steve-O! There is a full page ad in the Washington Post as well so Adobe is apparently willing to put some hard earned Flash money into combating the attack. How quickly this turns into a full-blown battle or just a hair-pulling screaming match is anyone’s guess. To be sure though, the Adobe founders’ response to Mr. Jobs missive is pretty strong and direct so maybe this could be a real fight. Here’s the letter. The genius of the Internet is its almost infinite openness to innovation. New hardware. New software. New applications. New ideas. They all get their chance. As the founders of Adobe, we believe open markets are in the best interest of developers, content owners, and consumers. Freedom of choice on the web has unleashed an explosion of content and transformed how we work, learn, communicate, and, ultimately, express ourselves. If the web fragments into closed systems, if companies put content and applications behind walls, some indeed may thrive — but their success will come at the expense of the very creativity and innovation that has made the Internet a revolutionary force. We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company — no matter how big or how creative — should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web. When markets are open, anyone with a great idea has a chance to drive innovation and find new customers. Adobe’s business philosophy is based on a premise that, in an open market, the best products will win in the end — and the best way to compete is to create the best technology and innovate faster than your competitors. That, certainly, was what we learned as we launched PostScript® and PDF, two early and powerful software solutions that work across platforms. We openly published the specifications for both, thus inviting both use and competition. In the early days, PostScript attracted 72 clone makers, but we held onto our market leadership by out-innovating the pack. More recently, we’ve done the same thing with Adobe® Flash® technology. We publish the specifications for Flash — meaning anyone can make their own Flash player. Yet, Adobe Flash technology remains the market leader because of the constant creativity and technical innovation of our employees. We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web — the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time. In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody — and everybody, but certainly not a single company. Chuck Geschke, John Warnock Cofounders Chairmen, Adobe Board of Directors So who’s right and who’s wrong? Or is it who cares? In the end, this battle may culminate in who does or does not get content in certain environments especially in mobile delivery. So who could be the biggest winner of all? You tell us. Hint, it may be the folks in Mountain View.

Tags: Adobe, Apple, attack-on-adobe, competitors, create-the-best, flash, internet, market, mountain, pdf
Posted May 13, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

Google’s bringing back the goats. Yes, lawn-care companies around the country are officially panicking that Google has taken what appeared to be an isolated incident–a publicity stunt–and turned it into a tradition : More than 200 goats from California Grazing have once again arrived at our Mountain View headquarters where they’ll stay for over a week chomping away on grassy goodness. The cost of bringing in the goats is comparable to hiring lawn mowers for the same job and the green benefits are clear: the goats eliminate mower emissions, reduce noise pollution, restore plant species and fertilize while grazing. We’ve herd rumors that Microsoft is already trying to hire some of the goats and is exploring using its own goats and outsourcing them to Yahoo.

Tags: again-arrived, country, eliminate-mower, green, Microsoft, mountain, mountain-view, publicity stunt
Posted April 16, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media