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September 30, 2004
Froogle Britannia
And Froogle Uk is out on a beta phase. Opening the shop for the busy Christmas season...
Posted by Basileios at 10:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 29, 2004
China, Google News and source inclusion
Google have commented on their blog about the China Google news service and the fact that some sources were not included. (probably the first interesting post on their blog after the chicken recipe).
I find it very interesting that they claim 'On balance we believe that having a service with links that work and omits a fractional number is better than having a service that is not available at all.'
Better for who?
Posted by Basileios at 07:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 27, 2004
93 ways to grab attention
Guru of guerilla marketing Jay Conrad Levinson serves 93 ways to catch people's attention.
Posted by Basileios at 08:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 24, 2004
Fagoogle
Well, that didnt last very long....
Posted by Basileios at 12:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 23, 2004
Google and Ray Charles
Google celebrates the late Ray Charles birthday today with a Ray Charles logo:
Posted by Basileios at 04:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2004
Ask Jeeves. Nows it's Personal
A bit of a delay in reporting this but it is important news since it is a major update for AskJeeves that now includes special personalization options that allow one to search, edit, organize, save and classify selected results.
Ask has always been an engine we quite liked in Rugles. It is unfortunate that their database is not as extended as the Google database, but I believe that relevancy-wise Ask (and Teoma) is much better than Google these days.
Posted by Basileios at 02:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 21, 2004
Who you know and what you do
Seth Godin explains the thinking behind his 'number 10' lie which we talked about yesterday. I have to say that the logic reminds me of the marxist view of history under which history is governed by the acts of the masses (the passive networking in his explanation) and not by individual 'heros'. The course of history cannot be altered by the short term effects that a dictator or a conqueror can produce in the local or global communities. Having been brought up in the Hollywood educational era of heros and villains that 'make a difference' it may sound easy to simply disagree with this principle but, I have to admit that there is a lot more in Seth Godin's thinking that meets the casual observers eye.
However, contradictory as it may sound to this, I tend to agree with Larry Borsato: Success require sneezers that will push your 'quality' products to the widest possible audience.
In other words sneezers will help you get the critical mass, but its passive networking that is gained by 'what you do' that will establish your long term success.
Basileios Drolias @ Rugles Website Marketing
Posted by Basileios at 06:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 20, 2004
Lies for Status Que and an Objection...
Seth Godin has a list of 'ten lies for protecting the status quo' today:
1. Canadian pharmaceuticals are dangerous
2. Piracy is killing the ongoing creation of music and movies (notice I didn't say anything about the movie and music businesses)
3. Dental work lasts forever
4. A bottle of Evian is dangerous to airline security and must be surrendered
5. The Microsoft monopoly pays dividends to all users (like IE, for example)
6. You cant start a business without venture money or a big bank loan
7. Working hard for your boss and following instructions is the best way to get ahead
8. We need to spend taxpayer money on support for traditional factory farming
9. Its impossible to make a fuel efficient automobile Americans will accept
10. Who you know is more important than what you do
I kind of tend to agree with all of them but that last. In fact I find that 10 tends to be a bit contradictory to Seth Godin's Viral marketing paradigm. Sneezers - in his terminology - are people that tend to broadcast the charms and frace of an idea or product to their surrounding communities and act as the main tools for spreading idea viruses. Well, in way the same applies to businesses and personalities and, sometimes sadly, who you know is in fact more important than what you do.
Posted by Basileios at 09:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 17, 2004
The perfect software vendor.
This is from SupplyChainDigest but through Dana's blog. Finding the perfect software vendor is by no means an easy task. Characteristics of the perfect vendor:
Clarity and simplicity: the vendor is able to tell you what products they have, and what those products do, in very straightforward and simple terms. Does not require a game of 20 Questions to answer this question, nor are the answers seemingly more intended to obfuscate than clarify.
Well-trained sales people: Sales reps and account managers capable of answering reasonable questions about the vendors products, pricing, and policies.
Easy deployment: Simplicity in the application (even if the underlying capabilities are powerful) and/or tools that enables deployment (from a software only perspective) in a few months with a modest level of both vendor and company resources.
Remembers you after the sale: The perfect vendor would pay a high level of attention to its installed base, as demonstrated by actual resource allocation.
Support and maintenance: Written support policies for bugs and issues, and consistent execution against those policies.
Flexibility: Makes it relatively easy for you to change to configuration of the software when the inevitable changes to your business occur.
Software that evaluates itself: The vendors software solution should be able to tell you when results are not meeting expectation, and even better, give you some intelligence as to why.
Posted by Basileios at 04:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 16, 2004
Firefox is here
Mozilla Firefox version 1.0 (Preview release) is available today, and there is a new version of Thunderbird 0.8 that even includes an integrated RSS reader. Read the announcement.
Posted by Basileios at 06:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 14, 2004
Yahoo! Buys MusicMatch
Yahoo! and MusicMatch announced today that Yahoo! will acquire Musicmatch for $160M in cash.
Jumping into music downloads signifies a switch from Yahoo's past music strategy, which has focused on streaming audio and video through Launch, a subsidiary that Yahoo bought for $12 million in 2001. Yahoo also distributes the Napster music service, which lets customers buy music downloads and sign up for subscriptions.
Industry analysts said that while the Musicmatch acquisition helps to round out Yahoo's array of digital music services, it will be hard for the company to compete with more established players such as Apple, since the computer maker markets both downloads and one of the most popular devices for playing tunes, the iPod.
Musicmatch currently charges $9.95 per month for its on-demand music service, offers individual downloads for 99 cents per song, and offers an online radio service free of charge.
Posted by Basileios at 10:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 12, 2004
Sound of Silence
Apologies for the lack of postings recently. Our host has been having some serious trouble and we weren't even able to access our account. More search engine news shortly!
Posted by Basileios at 11:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 08, 2004
Caught by the Google Police
John Battelle has been caught by Google police for his use of the Adsense adverts on his weblog. Read the full story from his blog and judge for yourself on whether Google is being over-sensitive here or not.
One thing is pretty obvious: Adsense means a lot to Google since so much of their revenues are through this 'hoi polloi advertising' system. Every now and then we find rumours on Adsense manipulations which certainly do not to the company any good. The publicity they will get out of this 'attack' on John Battelle will probably do them good in the face of investors and advertisers...
Posted by Basileios at 05:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 07, 2004
Happy Birthday Google!
Six years old today...
Posted by Basileios at 01:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Preparing for the Busy Holiday Season
Jacob Nilson, the guru of usability, has a subject very close to our heart in his Alertbox this week: The organization of the landing pages and the strategic setup of the PPC campaign. Quite an interesting read.
Posted by Basileios at 03:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 03, 2004
Do Less
So, can you achieve more by doing less? Can you make a difference not by increasing the number of customers in your company but by decreasing it?
Success - in the end - is not counted by numbers but by quality (either that be service or life...)
Over to Seth Godin for the full manifesto.
Posted by Basileios at 05:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 02, 2004
New Google Adsense Features
Google has just announced a new set of featires for Google Adsense. Here is the announcement from Google:
Multiple ad units
To provide even more value to your users, and to help you further monetize your web pages, we're allowing publishers to place up to three ad units on every web page. Our system will automatically recognize the additional ad units, and
will serve unique ads to each. Your ad units can each have different color palettes, formats, and alternate ad URLs, providing you with the flexibility you need to incorporate Google ads into your site design.
Collapsing ad units
An additional option for your alternate ad content, Google’s collapsing ad units ensure that your page space is used to its maximum potential at all times. When targeted ads aren’t available for an ad unit, the
collapsing ad unit feature will shrink the empty ad unit, so that blank ad spaces are eliminated from your page. For instructions on implementing this feature, please read the AdSense FAQ.
New name for WebSearch
We’re dropping the ‘WebSearch’ from ‘WebSearch plus AdSense for search.’ This monetized search feature will now be referred to simply as AdSense for search – but all of the same great features
remain. For more information on providing customized Google internet and site search to your users and earning money from clicks on targeted ads, please read our FAQ.
Multiple domains for AdSense for search SiteSearch
Your Search Settings page now provides you with the option of specifying multiple domains for SiteSearch. Simply enter up to three domains when generating your search code - your AdSense for search box will list each domain with a
radio button, allowing your users to choose the site on which they would like to search.
Ads by Goooooogle
We’re currently running a test with new branding features on Google ads. You may notice some of your pages displaying ‘Ads by Goooooogle’ ad units. We welcome your feedback on this new look, and we’ll be
analyzing the results of this test over the next while.
Posted by Basileios at 09:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 01, 2004
Press Release Tips
A press release is considered as a rather easy way to get media attention, links and traffic to web businesses. There are many rules that have to be followed in producing the right press release that will attract the editors' attention.
PRweb has some very useful tips for writing press releases and it includes many of those rules. Quite a useful resource for people who want to do this on their own.
Posted by Basileios at 04:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack