Facebook introduces Skype video calling

IDG News Service - Facebook on Wednesday announced a new video chat capability it will roll out in conjunction with Skype, in what the social-networking giant said is the first of many announcements of new applications to come in the next couple of months.

Users will be able to click a button in Facebook to call a friend. If the friend does not already have the plugin required for video chat, the friend will see a pop-up to download the plugin. That download should just take 10 or 20 seconds, said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, during a webcast press conference on Wednesday.

"This is possible because the social infrastructure exists," he said. "The system knows we're connected and we have the pipe open between us so new applications can flow between us."

Zuckerberg described Facebook as a platform that allows these kinds of new applications to be easily used. He also sought to set Facebook apart from competitors because Facebook plans to partner with companies like Skype that are focused on specific technologies.

"We want to leave all the applications to independent entrepreneurs and companies that are going to be best in class at building these things," he said. "That's a different strategy than other major Internet companies out there who try to do everything themselves."

That may have been a dig at Google, which recently launched its own social-networking service that includes features primarily built by Google.

In addition to video chat, Facebook also said it plans improvements to its group chat function and will roll out a new design for its text chat interface.

Zuckerberg also confirmed that there are 750 million Facebook users. Future growth, however, won't be measured by number of users but by how much people share on Facebook, he said. Currently, users share 4 billion things every day, he said. Facebook plans to continue to announce new features that will encourage people to share even more in the future, he said.

Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy's e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2010 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

4 video editors for tech-savvy business users

Computerworld - Most video editing suites are aimed at either the consumer or the video pro. But what about business users, who fall squarely in the middle of these two categories?

Today's midlevel editing packages offer a good deal of flexibility and power when it comes to working with videos. In fact, features that used to be available only in professional editing software a few years ago are now commonplace, like the ability to remove jitter from footage.

Of course, professional-level video editors provide support for professional-grade cameras and other hardware, and they allow for more detailed tweaking during the editing process.

But midlevel applications offer ease of use, a valuable commodity for business users who may not have a great deal of experience with video. These users might need that much more guidance in the form of tutorials or walk-throughs (at least at first), but they also need a program that can offer them a fair amount of power and not be hidebound by arbitrary restrictions often imposed on beginning users by "starter" software.

For this roundup, I tested four major prosumer-level video editing packages to see how suitable they are for business users who need sophisticated functionality combined with ease of use: Adobe Premiere Elements 9 Plus, Corel VideoStudio Pro X4, CyberLink PowerDirector 9 Ultra64, and Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10.0. I looked at these programs from several perspectives: how easy they were to start using, what kinds of editing-assistance features they offered for nontechnical users, and what kind of "canned" content (stock footage, templates) was packaged with each.

I ran each program on a system equipped with a quad-core Intel Core 2 Q6600 with 4GB of RAM, running the 64-bit edition of Windows 7 and using a dual-GPU Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2. With each program, I imported video from cameras that generated .MOV-format H.264 files.

Note: Of the four applications, only Adobe Premiere Elements offers a Mac version.

These midlevel packages have some rather sophisticated features that you may want to look for. One that's quite useful, especially if you're dealing with footage created on a less-than-professional camcorder, is the stabilization function. This takes jittery imagery and automatically removes a fair amount of the shaking. However, to make this happen, a certain amount of picture information is trimmed from the edges of the frame, and the remainder is made larger to compensate for the lost edges. The more shaking there is in the video, the more trimming that's required.

Another feature can be used to add interest to a video: It automatically edits clips together using a given visual theme or by following certain parameters about the content of the footage. Adobe's InstantMovie feature does this; ditto for CyberLink PowerDirector's Magic Movie Wizard. This feature seems mostly useful for generating filler montages where dialogue isn't crucial, since these auto-generated edits can be rather patchy and arbitrary.

This independent paper from senior analyst Jon Collins at FreeForm Dynamics considers how Web-based security threats are evolving, within the context of IT trends including mobile, home computing and other forms of remote access that could potentially increase the attack surface of the companies. It defines the scale and types of threat, what to look for in a corporate web security solution and compares the different types of technological approach available to companies and the processes that need to be considered for effective protection.

Read now.

Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

Social-networking sites have revolutionized how businesses use the Internet. Instead of relying on faltering newspapers to find job candidates, companies can access thousands of potential employees through Facebook and Twitter. But social-networking sites have also left businesses vulnerable to new security threats. So are they tools to be used or security traps to be avoided?

Read now.

C-Suite: Tony Fisher on Target coming to Canada

Target Corp. is giving Canadian journalists a preview of what’s to come when the popular department store opens up to 150 stores in 2013. Hollie Shaw talked with Tony Fisher, president of Target Canada, about which Zellers locations to take over and hurdles to entering the Canadian market.

Q: There is a high brand awareness among consumers for Target in Canada. As you assess the market are you finding any challenges to opening?

A: We can’t assume that everything we do here in the U.S. will translate completely to Canada. We are confident that our brand will translate. We will be looking to understand the local nuances. That will be very important. I think the merchandising team has a lot to learn about what is relevant at each individual local level.

Q: What is the most surprising thing you have found out about the Canadian retail market in the last five months?

A: The diversity and inclusivity within certain pockets. Coming out of [Toronto's Beaches neighbourhood] you’ll see Greek town, with some storefront signs that are in Greek. You don’t see a lot of that here [in the U.S.]. Another thing that surprised me is the expansive landscape with surprisingly different demographics and how we understand this massive landscape form coast to coast.

Q: What are the differences between Canadian and American consumers?

A: Starting with similarities, there is a focus on value; when I think about ‘expect more, pay less’, our brand promise, I think that will resonate very well in Canada. The differences at that local level in particular are really what we have to understand over the next two years.

Q: Do you find confusion in the marketplace about whether you are taking over Zellers, as opposed to certain Zellers leases?

A: Our relationship with Zellers was purely a real estate transaction. Zellers will continue to operate after this is all said and done, we are not acquiring their business, their supply chain infrastructure, their headquarters or their technology. What we bring to Canada will be uniquely Target.

Q: You have said that you might select some Zellers sites that will not become Target stores.

A: We wanted to look at the top 220 sites to make sure we found the ones that made the most strategic and financial value to Target. We hope that the majority of those are going to be of strategic and financial value for us to operate a retail store in. [If not], there are a variety of other options; maybe it’s subletting to another retailer, maybe it is giving it back to the landlord. There could be a number of options to generate strategic and financial value out of those stores without converting them to Target stores.

Q: Are you setting up distribution centres to accommodate food as well as your other merchandise?

A: We are very early in our distribution strategy. We know that the right supply chain infrastructure is going to be critical for us to deliver the strategy in Canada. It might include a combination of what is called ambient supply chain and a temperature-controlled supply chain [with cooling trucks for perishable food]. We haven’t made a decision [either way]. Food is a critical component of our strategy in the U.S., but it is also something that drives guests into the store [in the U.S.]. How we utilize food might be different in Canada than in the U.S. What we do in Canada has yet to be determined. We first have to understand the role of food in the competitive marketplace as well as what our guests want.

Sprint's HTC EVO Shift 4G: Not flashy, but practical

Computerworld - Not all phones are revolutionary -- or need to be. Some, like the HTC EVO Shift 4G from Sprint, are worthy just because they fill an important gap in a product line.

The original HTC EVO 4G was a rock star: It was the first true 4G phone, designed to be a multimedia master. The thing even had a kickstand so you could prop it up on your desk and marvel at it. That was followed on Sprint by the Samsung Epic 4G, a Galaxy S phone that combined an excellent screen with a slide-out keyboard.

The Shift ($149.99 with a two-year contract) is more pedestrian. It's got a slide-out keyboard and a 3.6-in. 800-by-480-pixel screen; while not as spectacular as the Super AMOLED screens on phones such as the Galaxy S, it's more than sufficient. There's only one camera -- a perfectly fine 5-megapixel unit that does still shots and video. The processor runs at 800 MHz, not the 1 GHz performance that top-of-the-market phones feature, but the Shift doesn't feel sluggish.

As befits a slider keyboard phone, the Shift is a little chunky at 4.6 by 2.3 by 0.6 inches in size and weighing 5.9 ounces. That makes it half-again thicker than an iPhone 4 and an ounce heavier. But the Shift has a very pleasant rounded rubberized back that hides the added heft well.

Keys on the backlit keyboard are flat, with very minimal doming. There are ".com," "@" and emoticon keys as well as a joystick pad -- all of which are nice touches. The phone is wide enough that keyboarding is definitely a two-thumb operation, and there's plenty of room between keys to allow for typing accuracy.

The Shift comes with the current mainstream release of Android: Version 2.2, a.k.a. Froyo. This is particularly important for people who need solid Exchange support, since Froyo is the first Android version to support Exchange calendars, global address books and security features. (For those keeping score at home, the latest cutting-edge version of Android is Version 2.3, or "Gingerbread.")

Where the Shift shines is with 4G networking. Although your speed will vary depending on where you're standing and the state of the network at that instant, a good 4G connection will fly. In addition, the Shift supports tethering and can act as a hot spot, spreading that fine 4G karma around to as many as eight people nearby, at least until you burn through your battery.

The software that Sprint has included with the Shift isn't too obnoxious, although there are some nondeletable apps, including ones for NASCAR, football and Sprint TV. There are also more useful ones, including QuickOffice and Peep, a Twitter client.

If you want a legit 4G hot spot Android phone with up-to-date Exchange support and a hard keyboard, this is your phone. It's not flashy or revolutionary, but it'll get the job done.

Dan Rosenbaum, by day a search strategist and content maven, has been reviewing mobile technology since the 1990s. His MicroTAC and StarTAC phones are still in a box somewhere.

Read more about Mobile and Wireless in Computerworld's Mobile and Wireless Topic Center.

This independent paper from senior analyst Jon Collins at FreeForm Dynamics considers how Web-based security threats are evolving, within the context of IT trends including mobile, home computing and other forms of remote access that could potentially increase the attack surface of the companies. It defines the scale and types of threat, what to look for in a corporate web security solution and compares the different types of technological approach available to companies and the processes that need to be considered for effective protection.

Read now.

Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

Social-networking sites have revolutionized how businesses use the Internet. Instead of relying on faltering newspapers to find job candidates, companies can access thousands of potential employees through Facebook and Twitter. But social-networking sites have also left businesses vulnerable to new security threats. So are they tools to be used or security traps to be avoided?

Read now.

You really think that'll help?

User calls this university's IT department to order a battery for her laptop, according to a pilot fish on the scene.

"She says she would like for us to call her husband when it comes in, as he handles all her computer issues," says fish. "Husband was called and picked up battery.

"A week later, the user comes in with just the battery to inform us that the battery does not fit."

Fish and one of the techs examine the battery. They check the product number against the product database, and it matches -- this is the right battery for that laptop.

So they ask the user to bring in the laptop to see if we can get the battery to fit.

Weeks pass, and the husband finally calls to say that they're both coming in with the laptop. Fish jokes about getting out the hammer to get the battery to fit.

Next day they both come in -- and looking very concerned. A little probing turns up the cause: They're worried that fish and the tech actually were planning to get out a hammer to make the battery fit, and they might break the laptop.

Once that's cleared up, tech flips the laptop upside-down, slides the tabs over and pops the battery right in.

"They both stared in amazement," fish says. "Neither one realized those tabs need to sometimes be slid to the side to get the battery in. We all laughed, and he kept saying he will never live this down again with his wife.

"Sheepishly, he told us he owns his own Internet company and works with computers all day. My technician told him, 'Next time, we'll take it into a separate room.'"

Help fill the Shark Tank. Send me your true tale of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll score a sharp Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

The Best of Shark Tank includes more than 70 tales of IT woe submitted by you, our readers, since 1999. Which all goes to prove, conclusively, that hapless users and idiotic bosses are indeed worldwide phenomena. Free registration is all that's needed to download The Best of Shark Tank (PDF).

Spanish say PIG, not PIGS

A cheeky message about the crisis by a Madrid restauranteur

MADRID — The signs of economic strain are few and far between in this beautiful city except for one bistro menu I came across cheekily offering a “Especial Anticrisis Menu of bread, beverage and dessert for nine Euros”.
The Spanish are hurting but not in agony unlike the Greeks who hurl abuse, and stones, against their government for bringing the country to the brink of bankruptcy and then also for trying to pull it back.
This week, a Spanish business tycoon dismissively boasted that there is no “S” in PIGS, meaning that Spain should be removed from the list of countries that form Europe’s basket cases. “It is PIG or Portugal, Ireland and Greece,” he said. “Maybe a second I for Italy.”
Spain seems to be managing its downside cunningly. A German-born retailer I spoke with maintained that many Spanish seek employment, but there are jobs. He also said that apartment and house prices have remained level — almost double Germany’s — despite Spain’s unemployment, low economic growth and dramatically lower wages than Germany’s.
“It makes no sense,” he said.

Banco collapso
What makes sense is that, obviously, the Spanish are still able to indirectly bail out their banks so they do not foreclose or write off non-performing mortgages. Thus the housing bubble remains intact.
This has not escaped notice. Last week, the International Monetary Fund warned Spain to undertake more financial and banking reforms, and spending cuts, in order to allay market fears about woes.
The Spanish business attitude, mocking or machismo, underlines worries about Spain’s economy, which is as big as Canada, Russia or India. Spain and Italy are simply too big to fail.
Signs of pain and protest are few and far between. A couple of weeks ago, the “Spanish Spring” involved hundreds of thousands of “indignados” (indignants), or students, unionists and impoverished, who staged protests in Madrid, Barcelona and elsewhere. In Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square is the remnants of the large sleeping-bag protests that were scattered across the country.

Mucho jobless
Unemployment is 22%, or roughly four million Spaniards. Last year, the government chopped public spending by 7.9% and hopes are the economy will grow in 2012 by 2.3% and unemployment decline to 18.5%. Under-25 unemployment rate is 45%. Beneath these figures, however, is a gigantic underground economy, based mostly on cash and tourism, which continues to maintain its activity, in some measure due to the “Arab Spring”. Europeans destined for sun holidays in North Africa have canceled plans and gone to Spain and other southern European countries instead for their vacations.
But the country still has some challenges. The ruling Socialist Party of Prime Minister Jose Zapatero has agreed to cut €15 billion (roughly C$21 billion or the size of Canada’s total defense budget); chop civil service salaries by up to 15%; raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 and chop health care and education. Execution will be difficult and he’s leaving office.

Facing the bull
He is another casualty in a political climate that is akin to Spain’s blood sport, the bullfight. Current and future leaders must be as fearless and courageous as matadors, slaying monstrous bulls in the hot sun in front of 80,000 screaming fans. And this weekend, the country’s bullfighting sensation, Jose Tomas, returns to the ring after a year recovering from a near-fatal goring in Mexico. The speculation here is whether his fearlessness will prove fatal because he takes so many risks.
The same could be said for many of Europe’s leaders who risk their political lives and will all eventually bring about their demise. The toll has been huge and political careers in Spain, Greece, Ireland and Portugal have been destroyed. Others, in Germany or even France and in Europe’s central bank, are likely to follow as Europe’s living standards ebb.

Researchers: Search engines supplanting our memory

IDG News Service - Ubiquitous availability of the Internet may be causing a shift in how much information we retain in our memories, researchers claim.

Because search engines such as Google and Bing are so readily at hand, through desktop computers and mobile phones, we feel less need to remember details that can be easily looked up, note researchers from Columbia University, the University of Wisconsin, and Harvard University.

They have published their study, entitled "Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips," in this week's edition of the journal Science.

"People worry about what our relationship to technology is doing to our cognition," said Betty Sparrow, a researcher at Columbia University who led the research. "They worry about looking up everything online and not remembering it all."

To probe the effects of this behavior, the researchers carried out a battery of tests with undergraduate students that closely observed what information they committed to memory and what information they didn't bother remembering, presuming that they could look it up on a computer should they need to refer to it later.

In one test, 28 participants were asked to read and retype items of memorable trivia, such as "Greenland is the world's largest island by area." Some of the participants were told the information that they typed in would be erased and others were told it would be saved on a computer. Then, they were quizzed on the material they retyped. Those that believed their material would be erased remembered more of the information than those who had assumed the material would be saved.

"Thus it appears that believing that one won't have access to the information in the future enhances memory for the information itself," the paper stated. In other words, if someone knows that information may be found on the Internet, he or she may be less likely to commit that information to memory.

Another experiment was conduct to determine if people prefer to memorize the locations of where they could find data in favor of remembering the data itself. Here, 32 participants were presented with a number of statements, along with the names of folders in which these bits of information would be saved. Then, they were asked to recall as much of the information as possible and were then quizzed on which folder each piece of information was in.

Overall, participants were better able to recall which folder each bit of information was stored in than the information itself.

Such results shouldn't alarm people, Sparrow cautioned. "I don't think that the parts of our brain that can remember information are atrophied," she said. While the Internet is fairly new, the act of relying on external resources for memory is not new for humans. People have long relied on friends, co-workers and family to keep track of information that they themselves have forgotten. The researchers call this phenomena "transactive memory."

"We've always done this sort of thing, allowed certain types of information to be stored with other people," Sparrow said. "Computers and access to online information work in similar ways."

Sparrow may next investigate if people memorize different kinds of things now that search engines are capturing all the details of what they used to memorize. Freed from the burden of remembering specifics, people could possibly better understand the larger meaning of the material they learn.

"Will people who don't focus so much on remembering who, what and where be better at answering conceptual type of questions?" she said.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is Joab_Jackson@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2010 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

4G shootout: Verizon LTE vs. Sprint WiMax

Computerworld - Last month, I pitted Sprint's WiMax-based fourth-generation (4G) network against its third-generation (3G) network in a series of real-world tests around the New York metropolitan area. My goal was to find out whether the speed boost you'll get is worth the hassle and expense of upgrading from 3G to 4G.

My conclusion? Absolutely — if it's available in your area.

Now that Verizon's competing LTE-based 4G network has been rolled out in my area, I returned to all the same locations and repeated my tests (see "How I tested") for a showdown between Verizon's and Sprint's 4G services. Let's see how they stack up.

Verizon's 4G service is based on LTE (long-term evolution) wireless technology, which has its roots in GSM (global system for mobile communications) and UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) cellular systems. It uses the 700MHz band of the radio frequency spectrum and has a theoretical peak speed of over 100Mbit/sec.

Sprint's 4G service, on the other hand, makes use of WiMax (worldwide interoperability for microwave access) wireless technology, which is based on the IEEE 802.16e specification. Sprint WiMax operates on the 2.5GHz band, and its theoretical peak download speed is 128Mbit/sec.

(Just what is and isn't a 4G service, anyway? See "The 4G name game.")

As we'll see later in this story, real-world speeds for both services are much, much lower than the theoretical ones, but still significantly faster than the companies' older 3G services.

Both 4G services depend on their providers building out nationwide networks with billions of dollars' worth of new equipment. Sprint has a head start; its partner Clearwire has been rolling out its WiMax network for a couple of years now. The service, known in the U.S. as Clear, is currently available in 62 cities, from Everett, Wash., to Tampa, Fla. Coverage is more complete on the coasts and sparser in the middle of the country; there are 12 states with no Sprint 4G service at all.

Verizon, which just launched its LTE service in December, has wired up 38 major U.S. cities, from Los Angeles to New York, as well as 60 airports for 4G LTE access. Twenty-four states currently have no Verizon 4G service. The company plans to build out the network over the next two years to cover its current 3G footprint. That means Verizon will likely provide lots of 4G access on the two coasts, the south and the midwest, but it will be sparse in the northwest.

Neither company's 4G network extends outside the United States at present.

Meanwhile, competitors AT&T and T-Mobile are taking the easier — and less expensive — route for now by upgrading existing equipment to evolved high-speed packet access (HSPA+) technology — although AT&T has also announced plans to roll out an LTE network over the next few years. (Next: Getting connected)

Can changing the name of a network make it run faster? That's the question before T-Mobile and AT&T, which in 2010 upgraded their 3G wireless networks with HSPA+ technology to make them deliver data faster — and then started advertising them as 4G networks.

Sprint and Verizon objected, saying that only WiMax and LTE qualify as 4G technologies. Both are Internet Protocol-based networks that make use of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing access (OFDMA) technology and are built especially for data traffic, while HSPA+ improves networks originally built for voice traffic.

But T-Mobile and AT&T say it's all about speed, arguing that their HSPA+ networks deliver average download speeds of 5 to 6 Mbit/sec. — more or less what Sprint and Verizon promise for their WiMax and LTE networks — and therefore qualify as 4G.

The arbiter of all this, the United Nations-affiliated International Telecommunication Union (ITU), has only added to the confusion. The group originally defined 4G technologies as being capable of delivering over 100Mbit/sec. of throughput. The ITU declared in October that only LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced, a.k.a. WiMax 2, technologies — which likely won't be deployed commercially until 2014 or 2015 — qualified as 4G.

In other words, none of the currently available networks deserve the 4G moniker.

In December, however, the ITU changed its criteria, defining 4Gness as nothing more than a substantial improvement over 3G technologies. By that yardstick, AT&T's and T-Mobile's HSPA+ networks could legitimately be called 4G.

I think the distinction between "enhanced 3G" and "4G" networks (those built from the ground up for carrying data) makes sense and should stand. In my book, WiMax and LTE are 4G technologies; HSPA+ isn't. But that won't stop carriers — or consumers — from applying the term as they like.

— Brian Nadel

This independent paper from senior analyst Jon Collins at FreeForm Dynamics considers how Web-based security threats are evolving, within the context of IT trends including mobile, home computing and other forms of remote access that could potentially increase the attack surface of the companies. It defines the scale and types of threat, what to look for in a corporate web security solution and compares the different types of technological approach available to companies and the processes that need to be considered for effective protection.

Read now.

Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

Social-networking sites have revolutionized how businesses use the Internet. Instead of relying on faltering newspapers to find job candidates, companies can access thousands of potential employees through Facebook and Twitter. But social-networking sites have also left businesses vulnerable to new security threats. So are they tools to be used or security traps to be avoided?

Read now.

Google Panda Algorithm Exploit Uncovered

In the Manufacturing Consent DVD a newspaper executive highlighted that they liked to have a 60/40 ratio between ads and content.

Google says that if over half your page's content is ads then your pages are of insufficient value.

What Google engineers miss when delivering sermons to webmasters is that Google is fine with disappearing their organic search results for self promotion & even advertises that consumers can't tell the difference between their search ads and the organic results.

You see, tricking people is bad. Unless you are Google. In which case you have to hit the quarterly numbers.

Everyone else needs to read Google platitudes, create deep content, and pray to turn the corner before bankruptcy hits.

Matt Cutts stated that you should make your products like Apple products by packaging them nicely.

For illustrative purposes:

It was easy for Google to speak from a moral high ground when their growth was above 50% a year, but now that growth has slowed over the past couple years they have been willing to do things they wouldn't have. In November of 2009 when I saw the following I knew the writing was on the wall.

Since then Google has only dialed up local more. If you are not in the top 1 or 2 organic (non-localized) search results then in some cases when they get localized you end up somewhere on page #2.

When Google Instant launched, we got to test Google's 50% content theory. And they hit the numbers perfectly. A full 50% of web users could see 2 organic listings above the fold when instant was extended (the other half of folks could only see one or none).

As if the massive Youtube promotion & the magically shrinking search results for everyone else were not bad enough, with Panda they suck at determining the original content source.

This site you are reading wasn't hit by Panda, which makes us lucky, as it allows us to rank as high as #3 for our own content (while Google pays dozens of other webmasters to snag it wholesale and wrap it in AdSense).

We got lucky though. If we had been hit by Panda (like 10,000's of other webmasters) we probably wouldn't even rank on the first page of the search results for our own content.

When Google screws up source attribution they are working counter to open culture, because they are having you bear 100% of the cost of content production, and then they are immediately paying someone else for your work. Do that long enough and the quality content disappears & we get a web full of eHow-like sites.

And yet Google tells us the secret recipe (which may or may not work at some unknown time) is to pour more money into content development.

The solution to this problem is more deep content. Keep feeding Google (and their AdSense scraper partners) and hope that after you pour $50,000 into your site that some small fraction of it ends up back in your bank account (while the larger share winds up in Google's and their AdSense partners).

As bad as all that is, I recently got selected as a lucky beta user for the next version of Google's search results. Notice the horizontal spacing that drives down the organic search results. After the top AdWords listings the organic listings start off 88 pixels lower on the screen.

I have a huge monitor. Less than 10% of people have a monitor as large as mine. Before this new search result I saw 8 organic search results above the fold on my large monitor. Now it is down to 5 (and that is with no Google video ad, no Google vertical comparison ad like the above credit card one, no browser toolbars, no browser status bar, and only 1 of the advertisers having ad sitelinks).

So how does Google score now on their ad to content ratio?

When Google's new search results roll out, there are some keywords where less than 1 in 3 searchers will be able to see a single organic listing above the fold! And lest you think that spacing is about improving user experience, notice how wide the spacing in the left column is, and how narrow the right rail AdWords spacing is. This is all about juicing revenues & hitting the number.

Which leads me to the Google Panda loophole I mentioned in the headline. It is an easy (but painful) one-step process.

All Google's propaganda about the horrors of paid inclusion look absurd when compared against the search result with 0 organic listings above the fold for half of desktop computer users.

The only "exploit" here is how Google is paying people to steal other's content, then ranking the stolen stuff above the original source.

PS: wake up Larry! ;)

U.S. durable goods orders jump more than expected

Tim Boyle/Bloomberg News

U.S. durable goods orders beat expectations on Friday.

WASHINGTON — New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods rose more than expected in May as bookings for transportation equipment rebounded strongly, according to a government report on Friday that could allay fears of a sharp slowdown in factory activity.

The Commerce Department said durable goods orders increased 1.9% after a revised 2.7% drop in April, which was previously reported as a 3.6% fall.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected orders to rise 1.5% last month.

Durable goods orders are a leading indicator of manufacturing and the report, which showed improvement across the board, pointed to underlying strength in a sector that has powered the economic recovery, even though recent regional factory data has shown some signs of fatigue.

Orders were a buoyed by a 36.5% jump in volatile aircraft bookings. Boeing received 27 aircraft orders, up from just two in April, according to information posted on the plane maker’s website.

Motor vehicle orders rose 0.6% after plunging 5.3% the previous month, suggesting some improvement in auto production, which has been hit by a shortage of parts from Japan.

Excluding transportation, durable goods orders increased 0.6% after a revised 0.4% decline in April, previously reported as a 1.6% fall. Economists had expected this category to rise 0.9%.

Outside of transportation, orders for machinery, primary metals, capital goods, computers and electronic products all rose.

Non-defence capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending, rebounded to increase 1.6% last month after a revised 0.8% fall in April.

Economists had expected a 1.0% increase from a previously reported 2.3% drop.

Shipments of non-defence capital goods orders excluding aircraft, which go into the calculation of gross domestic product, increased 1.4% after falling 1.5% in April.

© Thomson Reuters 2011

Your brand is your business

When a business is started, the owner often spends a lot of time thinking about what that functional business will be. They deliberate over how the supply chain will work, plan out their customer service schematic and ensure manufacturing efficiencies are optimized. But, frequently, the value of the brand in business design is neglected. It's tossed aside as a matter of iconography or turns of phase, thrown into the bucket of "advertising expense," and given low priority.

Then off that person goes to market, using CRM tools and PR strategies and cold calls and marketing vehicles. They pitch and sell and highfive. And yet what are their customers buying? Why do they choose that company's products and services over another's or vice versa?

There is no business model that can't be replicated, no intellectual property so unique its conclusions cannot be uncovered elsewhere, and no idea so special it couldn't equivalently float in a competitor's ether. We, as business owners, face a commodity conundrum. So how do you deal with that?

Here's the thing: Your brand is your business and anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool. Brand loyalty is vital to sustainability in the face of competition and commodification. Loyalty comes through relationships and relationships are built through emotional connections. Emotional connections aren't a result of pretty logos or clever copy — they're a result of interactions that are a result of content.

Recently, my company worked with an incredible startup called Rent Frock Repeat (rentfrockrepeat.com). Lisa Delorme and Kristy Wieber, its founders, came to us last year to launch an online designer dress rental operation, and they'd thought their business model inside out. They were incredibly sharp and ready to hit the market with a bang.

They were also clever enough to look beyond today, even though they have a unique market offering. They realized that to face a competitive space that would in time pop out replicators, they needed to have a rock-solid brand strategy that allowed the business to connect with its customers in an authentic, clearly directed and value-oriented way. And it needed to be something that would live through every interaction across every interaction point, taking them through the launch well into the future.

Building a brand is like building any other asset — it requires careful thought, planning, and, yes, investment. As with any other asset, the intent isn't to throw more costs against the bottom line — it's to build something that will enable your business to face a competitive marketplace stronger and more powerful than without it.

So what does your brand mean to you, your customers, your prospects and your partners?

- Jacquelyn Cyr is chief executive of Espresso (brandinfiltration.com) and has never met a business she didn't like. Please send questions, along with feedback or insights to gamechanger@brandinfiltration.com

More-General Keywords: How NOT to Get Traffic

One of the common rules in search-engine marketing (SEM) is that “content is king.” This is the idea that governs websites looking to become one of the Top 10 blogs with more-general keywords through the use of a content farm.

Ideally, this entails the publishing of quality articles that attract visitors through search-engine optimization (SEO) and keyword research who then spread the content themselves through outlets like social media. Of course, this is only part of the story. In order to rank highly in search results, websites and blogs also need a high number of backlinks to establish authority to Google’s spiders and search algorithms. And this is where the controversial practice of “content farms” comes into play.

There are many sites on the Internet that provide this important service even though it is self-serving as well. I do not want to risk any slander, libel, or defamation lawsuits, so I will not name them specifically. But any marketing veteran who provides SEO-consulting services will know to whom I refer.

Once a website or blog publishes a piece of good content, the author will often submit the same piece — usually rewritten in different words, if he does what he is doing — to a so-called “content farm” with included links back to the original site to gain increased authority from search engines. Of course, the site that again republishes the content — along with content from thousands of other sites — benefits through its outstanding SEO on more-general keywords to rank highly for the same terms as well as through gaining advertising revenue generated from the countless website visitors.

Google, however, is reportedly working to counteract the strategy (and rightly so, in my opinion). As CNET has reported:

Google has launched one of its first experiments aimed at fighting back against content farms, asking the public to help identify the worst offenders.

Chrome users can now download an extension from Google called Personal Blocklist that will allow users to block certain domains from appearing in a personalized list of search results. Google will also track the domains that users flag “and explore using it as a potential ranking signal for our search results,” wrote Matt Cutts, principal engineer at Google and a prominent anti-spam spokesman for the company, in a blog post.

For several weeks Cutts and Google have been acknowledging frustration over the proliferation of content farms in Google’s search results, or sites that write content for really no other reason than to appear within search results and draw traffic from Google. Most often that content is poorly written and sometimes nonsensical, as site editors try to understand what people are searching for on Google and commission low-cost posts with enough keywords to show up on the first page of results.

Personally, I despise content farms and all of their bastard cousins (though I understand and admire their success). Even though I now work as an online marketer, I am still a journalist at heart as a result of my background as a Boston newspaper-editor. If I take several hours to research and publish a quality article at a place like my Considerations blog, then I expect to receive one-hundred percent of the credit.

More-General Keywords

Of course, that rarely occurs in the Internet Age. Without naming names, of course, I see many websites whose programming use my RSS feeds, Google News, and other items to excerpt much of the post and “reprint” it themselves. Contrary to popular belief, Google does not penalize websites that plagarize or copy existing content word-for-word — but the search search engine aims not to reward them, either. Google gives SEO “credit” to the site the published the content first. (However, sites with outstanding SEO — like many content farms — will still benefit somewhat by constantly adding “new” content and new pages.)

So, many webmasters have taken a different approach. I once had the owner of an online-gaming affiliate site contact me for SEO-consultant services that turned out to be the following: I would merely have rewritten content from other online-gambling sites in my own words for him to publish. Unfortunately, online-marketing strategies like this are common. As a result, much of the content online is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of an original article published on a major site or news outlet.

Now, there is nothing wrong with researching a topic, reading existing articles, and then using the source material to compile something new and original on the subject. Journalists and academics do this all the time. But they credit the sources, come up with original insights, and spend the time to write something entirely fresh. I have no problems with other sites excerpting and sourcing my writings in other original content — of course, I like the backlinks. But I hate when sites merely copy my work — and besides, it is no way to become one of the Top 10 blogs on the Internet. The most-read bloggers are those who are experts on their topics and contributing something original.

And as CNET has reported, it seems that Google is planning to reward those types of online writers through helping to increase their search-engine rankings. In my opinion, it is not enough for content farms not to receive significant credit (at least usually) — they should be penalized and pushed down in rankings as well. Anyone can have a site search and copy content — I have even heard rumors of upcoming programs that will rewrite content in different words automatically without the need for an actual human being. Creating something significant and original takes time and effort — as well as SEO-software reviews.

Websites as a Center for Social-Media Interaction

At a social-media seminar in Florida, Ellie Mirman learned how SEO marketing is similar to the business model of successful hotel-chains. Her blog post afterward is highly-recommended reading, and I will add a few additional thoughts here. First, here is my summary of the observations:

1. Selling rooms is the core business; you want me to come and spend time there.

2. Offer services like fine-dining restaurants to attract additional customers among people who are not looking for rooms.

3. Host events to bring even more customers who want neither rooms nor meals.

The second and third groups of customers generate revenue themselves, and those people “spread the word” about the hotel to other potential customers as well as become more likely to choose the hotel themselves when they do need a room.

As Mirman notes:

Think about how you create value for every member of your company’s community. In most cases, your community is not just made up of the folks that would buy your core product. How can you use social media to draw in more potential customers, offer different types of value depending on what they’re looking for, and help them connect with each other while rallying around your brand?

Center for Social Media

Her insights, and those of the presenter at the seminar, are important SEO and SEM marketers to realize. Every website has a core business that is usually one or both of the following: earning revenue from online advertising or the sale of products and services. This is typically done through the creation of quality content (more so in blogs) and the writing of sales-oriented calls-to-action (more so in product websites). (But resist the urge to use so-called “content farms.” See “Top 10 Blogs, More General Keywords, and a Content Farm.”)

However, just like a hotel chain, any good website or online portal will offer additional, complimentary services. A forex website may have a detailed forum, wiki, or message board that allows currency traders to discuss the latest news and economic projections. A sports website may over detailed statistics for research purposes and fan debate. And so on. People will not only to become a forex trader or sports enthusiast respectively; they will also come to become a member of a branded, popular, online community full of like-minded individuals. The resulting core-business from these people specifically is an indirect — though still-valuable — side-benefit.

And just like a hotel chain, the aforementioned websites can offer “events” to attract new customers or traffic while still engaging current ones. A good site should have many different “points of entry” through which it will become popular and increase overall revenue. This is where social-media marketing (SMM) can help. It is not enough to advertise one’s products or services on sites like Facebook and Twitter — this is seen as blatant, self-serving advertising and is less successful as a result. Rather, SMM efforts focus on the letter two options — the website’s community and events.

People use social media mainly for communication and social interaction — they are not often using the social-media networks specifically and directly to find a product or service. (Rather, they use search engines like Google — though the two are becoming intertwined. See “SMM — Art of Social-Media Marketing in Google.”)

As a result, SMM should emphasize the personal, community-based aspects of a website. When these parts become more successful, the revenue from advertising or sales will naturally increase as well. Every good website should serve as a center for social-media interaction.

Googling 'middle manager'

Maybe everything you need to be a great manager can be taught by age 18.

“Do some retail, do some selling, and be a camp counselor,” advises Thomas Davenport, a specialist in human resources in the San Francisco offices of Towers Watson. “You’ll learn to deal with people who aren’t happy while maintaining decorum, how to sell and negotiate, and how to solve emotional problems from an eight year-old that misses his mom.”

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Okay, they like to hire them young in the Valley, but that’s not what he means. Davenport thinks about the lost role of the middle manager in large corporations, and has written a book on the subject. These people, denigrated as “paper pushers” when email wiped out their jobs, actually occupy a critical “zone between two ecosystems,” he says, “neither executive nor employee.”

As such, they are the unnoticed broker between the corporation and individual. This matters, as knowledge-based work makes skills increasingly portable, and companies need to fire the passion of their staff with more than money.

“The main quality a workforce needs is empathy,” he says. “People join companies for compensation and benefits, but they stay for development, asking whether this work is making them smarter and better.” Hence, the retail, selling, and nurturing skills they don’t teach at business school.

There is something to it. Job security is nowadays best found in a museum, so it only makes sense that good people should want their skills honed for whatever comes next. Even more though, companies have to deal with fast-changing ecosystems, and need to hold good people who are attuned to what is new in their field.

Yet isn’t Davenport – who is admittedly talking up his own profession by telling companies to find and hold more middle managers – also at odds with much of the Valley? Here, the ideal has for years been the fast-acting “flat” corporation, hostile to meddling and driven to solve each task as fast as possible.

Davenport says that Cisco, which kept itself flat by managing through numerous multi-discipline councils and boards, is now enabling managers to work more as player/coaches, “finding people who are being sought out for advice, and has teams that meet their goals on time,” he says. “They are headed in the right direction.”

Google and Microsoft, on the other hand, “are making a mistake just throwing money at people,” he says. “That is always the easiest lever to pull.”

Elsewhere I wrote about what it may take to succeed in the world of Freelancer.com. It is a world where you work on small, quickly assembled teams, you are judged by your portfolio more than your degrees, and the real money gets made by the talent wranglers who “move fast, and (are) the guy running things.”

That point, overextended, posits that big companies will wither away, and the world will be nothing but teams and short-term jobs. That is almost certainly not the case – supply chains, cash management, and inertia, among other things, argue against it.

But the trend to individualized work and skills is clear, as is the need to find and nurture the fulfillment the best workers really seek. Davenport has a point: This is better seen by a manager close to work than by a high-level executive.

Android Honeycomb: Powerful and promising, but not perfect

Computerworld - Honeycomb is a whole different beast from the Android we've come to know. While previous versions of Google's mobile operating system were built for smartphones, Honeycomb -- also known as Android 3.0 -- is the first to be designed specifically for tablet-size devices. And seeing it in action, it certainly shows.

Motorola's recently launched Xoom is the first in a series of tablets that'll run the Honeycomb OS. The Xoom has made plenty of headlines for its high-end specs: The tablet boasts a dual-core 1-GHz processor with 1GB of RAM. It has 32GB of internal storage, plus the option for additional storage via an integrated MicroSD slot. And all of that is housed beneath a beautiful (if slightly glare-prone) 10.1-in. display.

But the truth is, while the Xoom's hardware is impressive, it's the software that's the much bigger story. I took a long look at Honeycomb to see how it compares to earlier versions of Android and to its popular competitor, Apple's iOS for the iPad.

When you power up an Android Honeycomb tablet like the Xoom, you'll find yourself on one of the device's five available home screens. These home screens and the functionality they provide are among the most significant advantages Honeycomb offers over competing tablet platforms.

Where the iPad's operating system is basically a blown-up version of what you get on the iPhone -- static rows of square-shaped icons -- Honeycomb includes several features that take full advantage of the tablet's ample screen real estate.

Among the most useful features are the widgets, which are effectively live, functioning apps that run right on your home screen. You can have a widget for your e-mail, for example, that allows you to view and even scroll through your inbox. Other widgets let you browse your calendar, flick through news stories or see the current weather for your area, without ever opening a thing.

The idea of widgets, of course, isn't new to Honeycomb; as any Android smartphone user knows, widgets have long been a part of Google's mobile operating system. With Honeycomb, however, widgets have become more interactive than ever -- you can now scroll, flick and interact within the widgets themselves. And given the large screen size of a tablet, their potential becomes far more significant.

On a single screen of the Xoom, for example, I'm able to simultaneously see my inbox, my upcoming appointments and my local weather forecast. I also have scrollable access to all of my Chrome bookmarks, synced continuously from my PC. I'd imagine that after growing accustomed to this kind of advanced-usage scenario, many users would be reluctant to return to the static environment a platform like Apple's iOS provides.

Honeycomb, like past Android versions, also affords you the freedom to use your home screen space as you see fit; you can drop any combination of widgets and app shortcuts where you like. The actual method for customizing is quite different in Honeycomb than in previous Android releases; while it may be an adjustment for Android phone users, it strikes me as a far more intuitive approach.

On an Android smartphone, adding a widget requires you to either long-press your home screen or tap your phone's "menu" button to find the command. Adding app shortcuts and changing wallpapers are separate processes.

In Honeycomb, on the other hand, you simply tap a "plus" icon at the top-right corner of the display to enter an all-in-one home screen customization tool. There, you find thumbnails for your five home screens, along with lists of every widget, app shortcut and wallpaper on your tablet. You can touch any item to select it and drag it onto a home screen. Then, on the home screen itself, you can touch and hold any item to move it around or eliminate it altogether.

Is it simple enough that a 2-year-old could figure it out? Not necessarily. But this is a tablet, not a toy -- and what you lose in foolproof simplicity is a trade-off for what you gain in powerful functionality.

This independent paper from senior analyst Jon Collins at FreeForm Dynamics considers how Web-based security threats are evolving, within the context of IT trends including mobile, home computing and other forms of remote access that could potentially increase the attack surface of the companies. It defines the scale and types of threat, what to look for in a corporate web security solution and compares the different types of technological approach available to companies and the processes that need to be considered for effective protection.

Read now.

Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

Social-networking sites have revolutionized how businesses use the Internet. Instead of relying on faltering newspapers to find job candidates, companies can access thousands of potential employees through Facebook and Twitter. But social-networking sites have also left businesses vulnerable to new security threats. So are they tools to be used or security traps to be avoided?

Read now.

C'mon, who really needs that stuff?

This pilot fish gets the task of writing the end-user documentation for a software project.

"Originally, I was given two weeks at the end of the schedule to write a manual," fish says. "This was to coincide with quality assurance and testing.

"As sometimes happens, a problem in development caused the schedule to slip. Our manager decided the final deadline could not be moved, and required that the project skip QA and testing.

"I wrote the manual in two 20-hour days. And I made sure to mention who to contact with bug reports..."

Contact Sharky with your true tale of IT life. Send it to me at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll score a sharp Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

The Best of Shark Tank includes more than 70 tales of IT woe submitted by you, our readers, since 1999. Which all goes to prove, conclusively, that hapless users and idiotic bosses are indeed worldwide phenomena. Free registration is all that's needed to download The Best of Shark Tank (PDF).

Amazon.com Android tablet business apps vs. iPad 3/HD

By Richi Jennings (@richi ) - July 14, 2011.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) is expected to launch an Android tablet soon. But it's not just for reading books; oh no, it'll also be a business tool, we're told. A Q3/Q4 release date would put it head-to-head with the expected iPad 3 (or HD). In IT Blogwatch, bloggers round up the rumors.

Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention: The Sagan Series - End of an Era: The Final Shuttle Launch...

Melissa J. Perenson reports:

A September or even early October introduction would be well-timed [for] the holiday shopping season. ... [It] could be the most asked-for stocking stuffer of 2011. [The timing] coincides with when arch-rival Apple plans to launch...potentially, a new, higher-resolution iPad.
...
...[T]he company's CEO, Jeff Bezos, has indicated in the past that a tablet is its next frontier. And that makes perfect sense. ... Amazon and Apple are two behemoths each vying for consumers' digital media purchase dollars. ... Rumors put the screen at "roughly nine inches." ... The tablet will run Android, presumably Android 3.2.  

Cade Metz addz:

There's quite a rivalry developing between Amazon and Apple. ... Both are now selling digital music, videos, and books, and...Apple actually sued Amazon for calling its Android app store the Android Appstore.
It's nonsense of Jobsian proportions.  

Our old mate Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols says what to expect:

...[H]ere’s what my sources have been telling me...people both inside Amazon and from Amazon’s partners. ... The Kindle Tablet is going to be made by Quanta. ... It will run Android Honeycomb 3.1. ... [I]t will have dual-core OMAP 4 (ARM Cortex A9) processors running at 1.5GHz [and] a solid-state drive (SSD).
...
[B]esides having the usual collection of Android applications...[it] will also have serious business applications. ... I’m talking about interfaces to enterprise-level applications. ... I expect Amazon to price its tablet very aggressively. ... .  

      
Mark Sigal offers his thoughts:

Amazon is the only company with the media relationships and...billing relationship with consumers to directly challenge Apple. ...Amazon understands product discovery and recommendation even better than Apple does.
...
...Amazon is also very well-positioned to outflank Google's play with Android. ... By better leveraging their installed base with Kindle; by building...tight integration with the Amazon Android App store and with Amazon Cloud Services; by...harnessing their recommendation services on both digital and physical goods.
...
...[T]he market needs an integrated alternative to iOS...to keep Apple honest, and...because not enough developers are making serious coin. ...[T]here are legions of Android developers who...don't like having to support the compatibility matrix from hell...not to mention the fact that the Google model is all about free.  

Surprisingly, MG Siegler is pleased:

The fall is going to be very interesting. There’s a reason Apple wants to get another iPad out there before the end of the year.  

 The Sagan Series (part 6) - End of an Era: The Final Shuttle Launch
Beautiful, inspiring, and downright essential to watch.
[hat tip: Blake Patterson]


Don't miss out on IT Blogwatch:

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and security. He's the creator and main author of Computerworld's IT Blogwatch -- for which he has won American Society of Business Publication Editors and Jesse H. Neal awards on behalf of Computerworld. He also writes The Long View for IDG Enterprise. A cross-functional IT geek since 1985, you can follow him as @richi on Twitter, pretend to be richij's friend on Facebook, or just use good old email: itbw@richij.com. You can also read Richi's full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

Today’s SEO and Online-Marketing News

The New Year brought a lot of interesting SEO articles and posts over the weekend in the context of the future of online marketing, so here are a few that caught my eye (as well as my additional thoughts).

SEO Content Changes

Bill Slawski at SEO by the Sea — as a former Bostonian who has lived near Tel Aviv as well, I love that name — examines the effect of changes to a website or blog’s old pages on later crawling by search engines. The takeaway: The more often that a site is updated — but not, perhaps, merely changed — the more often that Google will “crawl” it. Slawski had introduced his post by describing how many webmasters will change the copyright footer-text from 2010 to 2011 at the bottom of their websites in light of the New Year.

I can certainly vouch for the principle of changing old content. In my work as an SEO consultant, I actually enjoy telling clients — or readers here — about the mistakes I have made. After all, one should learn from his errors — and the lessons end up helping others. And my major mistakes involving old posts on my Considerations blog, which I started when I was a Boston newspaper editor in 2006.

I had written hundreds of posts at the blog on various topics long before I had known anything about SEO. I had known nothing about search-engine optimization URL tips and the value of keywords in meta titles. (In an earlier post, I discussed how social-media icons and Twitter SEO changed the nature of headlines in journalism.) I had written headlines — which became the meta titles in SEO terms — because they were “punny” rather than because they would use keywords that would deliver traffic.

And then, after moving to Israel to work in the high-tech marketing sector here, it hit me. And, boy, was it painful. Have you ever had a moment in your professional or personal life when you realized that everything you had been doing for years had been entirely wrong and all for naught? Yeah, that was me. I had spent years writing quality content on topics ranging from economics to Middle East politics to dating — but with relatively nothing to show for my effort. I had not even thought to put Google Ads on the blog — but what can I say, I had been an SEO rookie.

So, once I had identified the major problem, I decided to revamp the old content. Despite my day job and consulting work, I aimed to improve ten posts a day at Considerations — even though I had written nearly 2,000 posts by that point. After sorting the posts in an Excel spreadsheet by descending order by traffic, I did long-tail keyword research pertaining exactly to the topic of each post from the top of the list to the bottom. Then, I rewrote the headlines (meta titles) and meta descriptions with the targeted keywords. The XML sitemap I had created lists the posts that were most-recently changed at the top, so Google would crawl them again first. But just to be sure, I resubmitted the sitemap in Google’s Webmaster Tools site after each day’s set had been completed.

It has been a grueling task, and I still have not finished since there are so many articles. But since the posts are sorted in Excel in an efficient manner, I have edited the posts collectively receiving a majority of the total traffic (top to bottom in the spreadsheet) within a few weeks. But after a month of work, the most-popular posts — some years old — are still receiving dozens of hits every day following my keyword-targeting. While a general-interest news blog will rarely earn significant revenue from advertising because the topics that interest news junkies are rarely those that lead to online sales (see: capitalism vis-a-vis supply and demand), the increase in traffic can translate into myriad sales for a website that markets a product or a company.

So, as Slawski notes, it can be very useful to edit and optimize existing content for search engines. Still, my experience always translates into me telling clients that it is important to hire an SEO consultant before embarking on a website redesign or online-marketing strategy (not that I am biased) — after all, no one wants to spend weeks (or longer) improving content that has already been published. It is much more efficient to know what you are doing at the beginning.

Besides, there is only so much that one can do after the fact. Although I could change the headlines (meta titles) and meta descriptions, I could not change the exact URLs for each post even though the presence of keywords in the URL of a page is a significant ranking-factor in search engines. If I had changed the URLs, then all of the “domain equity” — inbound links going to the prior URLs — would have disappeared since the links would have gone to pages that no longer exist.

New WordPress Upgrade

The WordPress platform celebrated the New Year by releasing version 3.0.4. Jonathan Bailey provides the details of the release, which reportedly improves the security of WordPress-based sites that use the platform.

I have little to add to Bailey’s comprehensive post on the technical details except to state the benefits of WordPress in general. (And, no, I am neither compensated nor rewarded in any way by WordPress for my comments. I still apply my journalistic principles to my comments on this SEO blog.)

First, I admit that I recommend WordPress. I use the platform for both Considerations and this blog. It is easy to use for online-marketing novices, and it is very adaptable for SEO experts. I can download, import, and use various bells-and-whistles — otherwise known as plug-ins — to market the sites effectively. And best of all, it is (mainly) free. There are many Internet-marketing companies that offer a content-management system (CMS), but they charge hundreds or thousands of dollars a month — and the benefits, in my opinion, are questionable.

One of the main calculations in any business context is the “cost-benefit analysis” — are the bells and whistles worth the added cost? In my experience, the answer is “no.” For roughly $60 a year, a person or business can register a domain (keyword-based, of course), import the WordPress platform, and customize it as desired. As long as a marketer knows how to use WordPress (and there are specific tactics), the benefits will be the same as those who use a system that is more expensive.

As a rule, I do not criticize other marketers or companies directly — my point in this blog is to give general tips and recommendations. (And, of course, those who disagree are welcome to opine in the comments.) But as a former American journalist, I usually have Fox News or CNN on my television as I do my writing and consulting work. (You cannot take the news out of the news-junkie.) Once in a while, the news programs will feature segments on online marketing — and I have to refrain from yelling at the television as a result.

Most of the time, the talking-heads on the television rarely know anything about which they speak. (This is true in politics and journalism as well as marketing.) They are on television simply because they have hired effective PR machines. For example, I once heard a marketing moron (pardon my Israeli bluntness) recommend that businesses start a free blog on WordPress or Blogger — through URLs like domain.wordpress.com or domain.blogger.com. And that is the worst thing you can do.

Here is the reason. Of course, it is tempting to start a free blog on either of the two sites since they are, well, free. While any blog anywhere will benefit you or your company, the long-term benefits to owning one’s own blog at its own URL vastly outweigh those at WordPress or Blogger domains.

The two general strategies to build a website in search-engine rankings are search-engine optimization (keyword research and placement) and backlink building. Websites that rank highly in Google are those that do both well (in addition to other factors). SEO work to improve a WordPress-owned site benefits WordPress the company rather than you. (WordPress places advertisements on its blogs that are seen by visitors who are not registered WordPress users.) In other words, WordPress will rank more highly, not you — www.domain.com is far better than domain.wordpress.com. Moreover, the WordPress open-source platform — which is free and available to anyone to use — only allows features like advertisements to those who own individual domains.

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to start a blog or website — and if you have not done it already, you are indeed far behind — then it is best to pay a small amount and do it correctly from the beginning.

Image gallery: Computerworld's favorite smartphone apps

This image gallery accompanies our story Computerworld's favorite smartphone apps. Click through to that story for the full review.

You can program your AT&T U-verse digital video recorder from your iPhone and not have to worry about missing the suggested show.

Return to Computerworld's favorite smartphone apps

EU vows to avert Greek default if austerity plan passes

Bloomberg News  Jun 24, 2011 – 8:10 AM ET | Last Updated: Jun 24, 2011 8:12 AM ET

European Union leaders vowed to stave off a Greek default as long as Prime Minister George Papandreou pushes through a package of budget cuts next week, pledging to do whatever it takes to stabilize the euro economy.

“We have agreed that there will be a new program for Greece,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters before the final session of an EU summit in Brussels today. “This is an important decision that says once again we will do everything to stabilize the euro overall.”

Greece’s next hurdle is to shepherd 78 billion euros ($111 billion) of austerity measures through parliament, after Thursday’s endorsement of the program by experts from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Europe’s latest attempt to stem the debt crisis came after bonds of debt-strapped euro nations slumped and officials in the U.S. and China warned that the euro area’s failure to restore confidence threatened the world economy.

Greece’s Papandreou called the commitment to a new three-year aid program “not only a green light but also a positive sign for the future of Greece.”

Draft Statement

Thursday’s discussions were dominated by Greece, which is drawing on 110 billion euros of loans pledged last year. The leaders paired their show of solidarity with pressure on the Greek opposition party to fall in line with the savings program.

Opposition leader Antonis Samaras refused to commit in meetings with fellow European conservatives in Brussels. While backing budget cuts, he lashed out at the “current policy mix” for too much reliance on tax increases.

The euro erased its decline against the dollar, on course for a third weekly drop, the longest run since February. It was little changed at $1.4232 as of 12:16 p.m. Brussels time. The yield on the 10-year Greek bond declined by five basis points to 16.82%.

‘Worrisome Days’

Papandreou offered an assurance that he would deliver the budget cuts demanded in exchange for the 12 billion-euro installment of emergency loans due in July and a new rescue package, a Greek government official said.

Speaking of “difficult and worrisome days,” EU President Herman Van Rompuy said Greek belt-tightening is “absolutely necessary to restore confidence and over time foster economic growth.”

Already at a European record of 142.8% of gross domestic product, Greek debt is set to rise to 166.1% next year, the EU predicts. The effort to cut a budget deficit that is about 10% of GDP has helped deepen a third year of recession.

In Athens, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, in office since a June 17 cabinet revamp, Thursday announced measures including a 5% tax on lawmakers’ incomes, a levy on self- employed professionals and a reduction in the tax-free income allowance. Greek lawmakers will vote on the package on June 30, in time for a July 3 meeting of European finance ministers to agree to pay the next installment.

Coupon Payments

Greece needs to cover about 4 billion euros of bills maturing between July 15 and July 22 and faces about 3 billion euros of coupon payments in the month, according to Bloomberg calculations. A bigger test comes on Aug. 20 when it must redeem 6.6 billion euros of bonds.

Papandreou said a European commitment to aid Greece will make it easier for him to sell the Greek people on austerity measures that have provoked strikes and riots.

“If there is a strong commitment from the European Union there will be a strong commitment from Greece,” Papandreou said.

The EU sweetened the offer by pledging to increase its contribution to Greek infrastructure projects and provide more “technical assistance” to enable the Greek government and companies to tap European subsidies.

Europe will “look at how we can use existing European structural funds in Greece so that they have an immediate impact on growth and jobs,” European Commission President Jose Barroso said.

‘Informal and Voluntary’

Leaders of the euro area’s six AAA rated countries have said the key ingredient of a second package must be a pledge by banks, insurance companies and asset managers to maintain their holdings of Greek bonds.

An EU statement spoke of the need for “informal and voluntary rollovers of existing Greek debt at maturity,” avoiding a coercive exchange that would lead credit-rating companies to declare Greece in default.

To make the rollover voluntary, talks with Greek bondholders must be held on a country-by-country basis, not organized from Brussels, an EU official told reporters yesterday. The EU wants national central banks and finance ministries to speak to financial institutions in their countries, the official said.

“We don’t see any way that investors are going to come out being paid on time and in full,” said Sean Egan, president of Egan-Jones Ratings Co. in Haverford, Penn.

Bloomberg.com