What Is a Video Press Release?

A video press release involves the senses in a way that text-only press releases can’t. It’s a recorded video version of the same information but with sound and imagery bringing it to life. Media experts have found that over half of viewers take further action after exposure to an online news video. That’s quite an impact, and it’s one that many types of businesses increasingly are taking advantage of.

What Does a Video Press Release Look Like?

There are several ways to format a video press release. The choice of content depends on the product or service involved. Interviews with inventors or spokespersons, product demonstrations and customer testimonials are all effective. Still photos and support text can be added to round out the experience. Some companies even display their stock market details.

Most video press releases provide excerpts of detailed product information along with a link to learn more. An inspiring soundtrack, animated company logos and humor are also useful components. In general, the more engaging the audio and visual elements are, the more effective a video news release can be.  You can also embed video content in traditional releases at certain outlets so be sure to familiarize yourself with each wire service’s guidelines for video. And it doesn’t have to be exclusively categorized as a video press release, I mean after all, the personal recommendation have really become the new PR according to many.

Taking a quote from HARO owner and PR speaker Peter Shankman during a recent Internet Marketing Conference, talking about content and PR he said, “…now, with social circles, the sewing circle is back.” He was talking about how over the past few decades the sewing circles have went away, personal recommendations have gone away and that was replaced with PR and the press telling you what movie to see, what restaurant to go to. Well with video and smart content marketing strategies and a solid PR Firm executing strategy, you can bring back the personal recommendation by appealing directly to your customers with video.

Taking Pages from Music Industry EPKs

The music industry uses a specific form of video news release called an electronic press kit or EPK. Generally, this consists of a prominent audio track, sound bites, artist-narrated biographies, and music video clips or live performance footage.

Examples of an EPK can be viewed at YouTube.com and other content sites where expansive reach has produced huge success. The EPK’s basic concept holds great potential for a wide variety of other industries, brands and businesses.

Can the Video Press Release Work for Any Business?

Based on the results obtained by various industries, it probably can. Many video news releases created by prominent companies are pitched to major television networks, but there’s an increasing number published online, too – for consumer consumption, and sharing.

Toshiba and Easton Pharmaceuticals both have VPRs published on YouTube. FinancialMedia.com presents a variety of news releases on YouTube as well as their own site. The companies represented range from alcoholic beverage producers to oil companies like Geo Finance Corporation. The director of broadcast communications at General Motors states that VPRs account for 10 percent of the company’s press releases.  There was also the case of Orabrush securing WalMart distribution with among other things, a carefully crafted video and more recently the Dollar Shave Club’s video that was a huge success in creating awareness for a product whose press releases just couldn’t.

Don’t Be Left Out

Many online publishers and news wires accept video submissions, so finding someone to cover your company’s news shouldn’t be difficult. To ensure acceptance, be sure to differentiate the look and feel of your video production from that of a commercial. Also, substantiate any claims about your product or service with proof and credentials.  You can also embed video content in traditional press releases on certain outlets, so if you have compelling video content do be afraid to use it there as well.

With the latest innovations on your side, a dynamic video press release can work magic and help your business secure more news coverage.

Technorati Tags: Online PR, press releases, Public Relations, video press release

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Are sales territories based on geographic lines still the best way to go about dividing B2B sales leads? What if, instead of the sales representative who happens to be closest, companies evaluated the prospects social graph to find out if any representatives have a professional connection to them instead?  Does this idea of social proximity trump the fact that someone else might happen to be closer or simply share the same area code? In an article on Social Proximity in Selling Power, Al Campa, Reachable CEO, answers some of these questions and also tells us about some tools that his company has developed to help leverage social connections for sales, recruitment and business networking.

It’s argued that social proximity, the distance socially you would have to travel to get connected to someone else, is far more important to sales engagement than geographic proximity or simply matching zip codes. This coupled with a new LinkedIn Sales Navigator product, video communication (Skype), presentation sharing (webex) and collaboration platforms galore designed to jump over any geographic hurdles, the notion of having connections to more people socially has arguably become the most important factor to not only getting more sales, but recruiters getting more talent, and business professionals establishing more connections.

According to Campa, Reachable’s research has shown, “that having an existing relationship with an account or prospect makes the likelihood that you’ll be able to engage that prospect or account three to four times higher.”  You might not be able to say that if you just happen to share the same zip code as someone.

In fact, even with all the information sales people have out there about people via Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and businesses via Hoovers, Google or Reuters, Campa says sales performance hasn’t improved; cycle times are the same, close rates aren’t improving, because the information salespeople need to succeed is not on Twitter or Facebook. The critical insight as he puts it, rather than background information, is “the key to engaging prospects and closing sales.” This information can only come from a trusted source inside the company, which is where the Reachable solutions comes in

What Reachable does, simply, is allow professionals and organizations to leverage their collective relationships and extend their professional networks to reach more people. The service consolidates your contacts from social networks as well as email contacts, and other sources and combines it with their database of upwards of 65 million professionals to create an extended network that enables you to amplify your reach. As quoted in a SmartPlanet article, Campe said Reachable was like, “LinkedIn on steroids.”

You can also leverage contact information from trusted members of your sales and executive teams through ShareGroup, which let’s you use another persons network as if it were your own. Contact information isn’t shared but can be requested through the contact owner. This lets users take advantage of the collective company network while keeping privacy for contacts in place. Reachable also integrates with several popular CRM programs including Salesforce.com and Oracle CRM On-Demand, to help users of these popular services take advantage of the Reachable network. Users don’t have to leave the CRM programs to take advantage of Reachable, which uses a proprietary algorithm to rank leads, contacts, and opportunities by the strength of user relationships from within the CRM system.

Reachable is available in an entry-level version for free, which allows you to see up to 100 connection paths. Beyond that there is a professional edition which starts at $49/month per user.

Technorati Tags: CRM, Reachable, Salesforce, Social Media

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It seems the hype surrounding the rise of online video and web TV is much bigger than the actual advertising dollars behind it. Perhaps it’s because brands can’t, in good conscience, throw an ad budget at endless videos of cats chasing laser pointers. This lack of actual premium content brands want to advertise around, is also the reason that broadcast content commands CPM’s from $21 – $30 and user generated content runs from $0 – $5 per thousand impressions, according to a “state of the industry” report put out by Digiday and Adap.tv.

There seems to be an enormous amount of video content added every day to YouTube though, one hour every minute according to the site, and it’s not all cats chasing stuff and doing tricks; so what about that stuff? The type of content pure online video play Revision3 creates, and Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel, thought was worth the reported $30mil that they paid for it.

In the past month alone the two biggest players in video ad technology, BrightRoll and Tremor Video have both announced verification tools to help brands ensure that their ads are placed where they are supposed to. There is a great piece on Digiday that goes over the numerous tactics that unscrupulous publishers use to artificially manipulate online video ad views, and what these verification technologies are supposed to protect against. It’s a lot similar to what ‘click-fraud’ was to the pay-per-click industry. According to the Brightroll announcement, three new tools, inventory planner, video rank targeting and BrandWatch will be integrated into the company’s exchange to help advertisers better understand their digital video campaigns. Also, VideoHub, which is the enterprise division of Tremor Video, announced tools to verify the viewability of their ads including player size and position to signal to advertisers if a video ad is viewable, unviewable or partially viewable.

But how well do these tools work? How comfortable will advertisers feel with just knowing that a particular ad is ‘partially viewable’? According to an article about web video & verification in Digiday, author Mike Shields states, “And to hear most folks in the industry tell it, verification technologies, which have become a standard precaution for display advertisers, don’t cut it when it comes to video”. What he is talking about was also echoed by Adxpose CEO Kirby Winfield, “it’s largely correct in asserting that traditional display ad verification does have a low success rate in typical video ad serving.”

This is where ClearStream comes in, a 10-month old startup that looks to provide better ways to measure ROI, assess video impact, target consumers and generally make online video advertising, “way more transparent” according to the announcement. When asked what would work for video, Winfield states, “What does work for video is customized, network ad server-specific verification, where the verifier integrates directly with the video ad serving solution used by the network.” The solution from ClearStream, called Clearview, uses a combination of in-stream video scanning with object recognition, detailed video output characteristics and unlike competing services, the ability to scan and score inside and outside the video player, rather than just pulling information from surrounding pages. It also provides a frame-by-frame of the original video for the advertiser, something that no other service yet provides.

Whether Clearview will help brands pinpoint and deliver on this promise has yet to be seen, but if they can deliver on this promise it will go a long way in easing the mind of the P&G, Johnson & Johnson’s of the world when it comes to paying for video ad units, and feeling secure that they’re showing up on quality, compelling content in a way that isn’t disruptive for viewers. As of now, according to a Digiday story, the jury is still out; with one advertiser and one agency on board testing the product and plans to roll out the product to the rest of the industry in the next few months.

Technorati Tags: ad verification, Brightroll, clearstream, online video, Tremor Video

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LinkedIn is the professional’s social network, allowing you to post your education, career experience and other relevant information about your career or job on a network filled with like-minded people. Presumably it’s a network aimed at the professional to highlight their accolades, get recommendations from customers and increase visibility from a professional angle. As of February the network boasted 150 million members with around 27 million of those classified as “decision makers”. All sharing industry articles, engaging in conversation via LinkedIn Groups and now for some, according to a recent Forbes piece, trolling the profiles of users to find prospects to cold call, or “smart call” as the article phrases it.

So is LinkedIn selling you out by offering up their database of user profiles to sales people? The new premium service, which wasn’t publicized with a news release and launched with any type of fanfare, is called Sales Navigator and is specifically designed to help salespeople with, what LinkedIn is calling, “social selling”. Enterprise Account Executive for LinkedIn, Brian Gainor sums it up: “LinkedIn is not primarily your online resume…If you are a salesperson, you have to think of LinkedIn as a super-charged sales tool that can radically transform your business. That”s really key”. According to the LinkedIn website, Sales Navigator is a premium account that comes with a bundle of different features including:

•  Lead Builder: Allows you to search LinkedIn’s database by seniority, function, industry, location, company and company size.
• InMail: LinkedIn’s inMail lets you personally contact any LinkedIn member, even those outside your network.
• Profile Organizer:  Workspace to keep all your prospect profiles organized with folders, notes, contact info. and correspondence history.

• OpenLink: This allows you to designate your profile as an open networker and lets others contact you without InMail or an introduction. This open link icon will display on your profile and in search results.
• Who’s Viewed Your Profile: View the expanded list of titles, regions, and companies of people who have viewed your profile.
• Premium Badge: This badge designates your profile so people outside your network can view your full profile.

The service costs either $39.95 or $74.95 per month. For salespeople this is a step in the right direction, by opening up more options for searching and pre-screeniThe service costs either $39.95 or $74.95 per month. For salespeople this is a step in the right direction, by opening up more options for searching and pre-screening prospects by sales territory or minimum company size it does some of the heavy lifting of finding pre-qualified leads for you. For users who post their resumes, this might not be such a good thing.

There is already an ad network on LinkedIn that lets marketers capture leads, but Sales Navigator opens the door to sales people actively pursuing you if you meet certain criteria. I suppose if you are using the site for free, and publicly putting information out there, there is no reason why LinkedIn and it’s customers shouldn’t have access to it. Since information is key to the success of those in the sales profession, having access to as much of it as possible is a good thing right?  There is already an ad network on LinkedIn that lets marketers capture leads, but Sales Navigator opens the door to sales people actively pursuing you if you meet certain criteria. I suppose if you are using the site for free, and publicly putting information out there, there is no reason why LinkedIn and it’s customers shouldn’t have access to it. Since information is key to the success of those in the sales profession, having access to as much of it as possible is a good thing right?

Technorati Tags: LinkedIn, Social Media

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It’s an impulse as old as cave paintings – the desire to share images that interest us, things we find beautiful, inspiring, appalling or just plain weird. That’s the idea behind social discovery innovator 20blinks, the Amsterdam-based site that is attracting a hip, edgy crowd. The site allows users to share collections of images, art, books, music, movies or anything else that matters to them. In the process, users establish an online personality that somehow feels more real than a collection of text and links at a traditional social media site.

The self-expression aspect was what first gave Sandra Hay, wife of iconic rock ‘n roller Barry Hay, the idea that eventually evolved into 20blinks. She envisioned an online treasure chest where users could store images that convey the things they find valuable. At first, she thought it would be a great way to create online memorials for deceased loved ones, a treasure trove of collections that would convey the deceased’s personality in a way that mere text and family photos could not match.

Teaming up with friend and neighbor Bastiaan Zwaan in 2010, the 20blinks founders refined the idea to include collections of anything any user (dead or alive) finds valuable and compelling, and the hot new social discovery site was born. Originally, the site enabled users to display up to 20 windows, but as the concept caught on and angel investment funding rolled in, it was expanded to allow users to express themselves in virtually limitless ways – capturing and collecting images that would otherwise be lost in a “blink.”

And express themselves they do, with collections featuring cutting-edge fashion, must-see classic movies, music, books and art – a dizzying array of images that are true to the site’s original purpose in that they say something unique about each user. Users can login to 20blinks with their Facebook, Twitter or Windows Live ID, and the site is integrated with established social media players like Facebook to enable users to grab compelling images for their 20blinks collections with a handy Blink-It button. It’s a natural fit since Facebook chats can be enhanced with a way to instantly share collected images and common interests.

So what’s in Barry Hay’s collection? Not surprisingly, the vocalist for Golden Earring has a collection of images featuring singers, including such diverse notables as Frank Sinatra, Ike & Tina Turner and the Kings of Leon. He also collects images of Chihuahuas and sunglasses as well as photos of French movie legend Brigette Bardot and much more.

“It’s amazing,” Hay observes. “All these images are floating around in space, and with 20blinks, you can collect them all in one place. Putting them together gives them a whole new meaning. It’s a great way to expand your horizons. There’s a practically endless variety of topics to share and learn about – from great speeches to ants to films.”

“20blinks also has a lot of potential to drive commerce.” Hay continued. “If you find another user with a collection of great movies, you might discover one you haven’t seen and then go buy it on Amazon.”

20blinks’ potential as a tastemaker has definitely attracted notice. It’s also an excellent tool to share new music. Golden Earring will celebrate the launch of the group’s latest release, Tits & Ass, on May 10, 2012, with a performance on the balcony of the Amsterdam Apple Store and free downloads of select singles at iTunes.

Hay notes that he will be back in paradise – Curaçao – ten days later. As he reviews his upcoming album launch activities, Hay describes a large flock of flamingos flying over the Caribbean beach he will soon temporarily leave. It sounds like a perfect image for 20blinks.

Technorati Tags: 20blinks, barry hay, bulletin boards, pinterest

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MuckerLab will Hold Inaugural Demo Day Today 4/26

MuckerLab, the startup accelerator and incubator based in Santa Monica, CA. have announced their plans later today for their inaugural demo day. The event is today at 1pm and I will be there to take a first look at the presenting companies as well as MuckerLab’s 3-month accelerator program and perhaps why LA is overlooked by VC interest and money, and even when companies do get funding, it’s not always coming from investors in the LA basin. The bulk of the $5mil in initial funding for LA-based Lifecrowd, for instance, was raised by Chicago based Lightbank

MuckerLab has recently launched two of thier startup companies already, SurfAir and Lifecrowd, both will also be participating today in the events. The complete lineup of presenting companies with brief business summaries are as follows:

• Instacanvas: an online marketplace for social media, art and artifacts
• Laffster: a distribution and discovery platform for premium comedic content through YouTube, Laffster.com, and beyond
• Lifecrowd: marketplace for social activities and finding things to do, coordinating events in your area. Help find offline social activities in an online marketplace
• Penango: browser-based encryption and security solutions for cloud applications.
• Surf Air: membership based airline service offering all-you-can-fly on the west coast for now with their fleet of eight light luxury jets
• Retention Science:  a big data retention marketing platform for e-commerce
• OttoLikes Lab:  an interest curation engine that’s pioneering an entirely new category of algorithms to provide consumers with ideas for online and offline products and services
• Wallaby Financial: a network-branded (Visa) payment card that dynamically routes transactions across a consumers existing credit cards to maximize rewards, cash-back, and savings.

MuckerLab recruits Internet software, services, and media entrepreneurs through an open, but selective, application process, similar to the models employed by Y-Combinator and TechStars. Companies then go through a structured, three-month-long program and are provided funding, office space, curriculum and hands-on access to a deep mentor network of top-tier investors and entrepreneurs who can help them build, launch and grow their businesses. At the end of the program, companies present their pitches to investors and media at Demo Day, the first of which is today at 1pm.

“Demo Day is a great showcase of the depth and diversity of startup activity here in Los Angeles, with companies ranging from cloud security and encryption to payments to online content distribution,” said MuckerLab Co-Founder Erik Rannala. “We are consistently impressed by the quality and sophistication of the entrepreneurs we meet every day here in the LA startup ecosystem and feel fortunate to be investors and advisors to the nine phenomenal businesses in our Winter 2012 cohort.”

Technorati Tags: demo day, LA technology, MuckerLab, tech startups

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The second panel was on “Modern Day Marketing, Sales & Conversion Secrets” with Mark Suster, a former entrepreneur that crossed over to “dark side” of VC, Jason Nazar CEO of .docstoc and Tony Adam  from Eventup.  This panel took a more startup-esque approach with Mr. Suster going through some examples of companies he’s invested in and what they have been tested in terms of marketing, whether it’s the next shiny new technology such as Pinterest to celebrity endorsements.

Jason Nazer then went on to go over some tips for landing page optimization and outlined his 7 key best practices for landing page optimization. docstoc membership is up to 25 million registered users, so they are doing something right with landing pages and capturing the attention of prospects and turning them in to registered users.

7 key best practices for landing page optimization (or 6 maybe)

1. One objective per page (use pop-up windows for mandatory privacy policy, TOS, etc.)
2. Headlines, Headlines, Headlines – the single most important thing to any landing page to drive an action is the Headline. He repeated this several times, stating that the headline is even more important than the call-to-action, lenghty sales copy and everything else. The headlines he says should be, “short and to the point”. he cited Square as the ideal headline and landing page configuration.
3. Sell benefits not features. People buy on emotion, and justify with logic.
4. Call to action buttons (testing different sizes, colors, shapes) – they can all make a difference, for docstoc dark forest green with all else being equal, works best as the color of the call-to-action button.
5. Social Proof (client list, “as seen on” or press mentions, and customer testimonials) also on the purchase page ensure trust with “verified by” logo, placed near the button to ensure safety and security.
6. Make your offer “Risk Free”, we all love guarantees, offering 100% money back guarantees. His experience shows that people don’t “abuse” this feature, even if all the user has to do is send an email and request a refund, even with digital products, they got a refund rate of less than half of one percent of the time on  a digital download.
7. The 7th tip was left out but something that probably could go in here is testing, testing and testing some more. The more you know about what the best copy, color, shapes of buttons, the more your page converts and provides value and squeezes more leads out of the same traffic.

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Originally published on Technorati as: FirstRain Releases First Tweets, Aims to Glean Business Intelligence From Tweets

FirstRain, an enterprise customer intelligence and analytics provider announced they will be launching a tool to extract business intelligence data from the full 250 million tweets/day firehouse from Twitter. This data is put through FirstRain’s patented  semantic and algorithm based filters, categorized and delivered directly to users’ CRM systems, social enterprise platforms, iOS and other mobile devices. The announcement was made yesterday, and current users will have access to the service starting Wednesday April 17th. 

International Data Corporation (IDC) analyst Sue Feldman, an award-winning analyst for the information access technologies market, including search engines, text analytics, structured and unstructured data stated, “We are bombarded with information daily. Most of the information is fairly insignificant, but the sheer volume of what we receive obscures what’s important and relevant. New tools like FirstRain’s FirstTweets™, may help us cope by surfacing what’s important and new and suppressing whats’ duplicated or marginal.” This underscores business concerns over how much time is spent finding valuable information from the troves of data in the Twitter API.

Even with hashtag searches, customizable lists and other advances made to help users filter data, a Twitter dataset analysis still found that only around 0.1 percent of all Twitter content is actually business-relevant intelligence.

This is what FirstTweets™ aims to remedy, essentially being able to get the benefit out of Twitter without putting in the heavy lifting of posting, cultivating content, scouring numerous twitter search, hashtag and content discovery sites to find the 0.1 percent of relevant information for your business needs. Pretty much getting the benefit of Twitter without having to live a Twitter lifestyle. FirstRain CEO Penny Herscher says, “FirstRain’s semantic algorithms filter out 99.9% of all tweets, and yet, that still yields more than 250,000 interesting and revelant business tweets per day.”

Technorati Tags: Analytics, BI, FirstRain, twitter

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Originally published on Technorati as Surf Air Hopes All-You-Can-Fly Membership Based Airline Will Fly With Travelers

Surf Air, an innovative all-you-can fly membership based airline, announced they would be launching today out of Los Angeles based MuckerLab, a startup accelerator program. The airline aims to serve customers who fly between Palo Alto, Monterey, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles with a membership based service that allows them to fly as much as they want between these cities for as low as $790/month on their fleet of eight small luxury passenger-aircraft. This is the second start-up company launched in as many weeks for MuckerLab, who last week launched Lifecrowd, a social discovery site aimed at helping people find things to do in their area.

Surf Air was founded by two brothers, Wade and David Eyerly. Wade is a former campaign aide to former VP Dick Cheney, and David is a former manager at Frontier Airlines, so they are not completely new to the travel game. In fact, the duo launched a similar service on the east coast under the name PlaneRed but decided to relocate their services to the west coast after enrolling in the MuckerLab program where they completed the 12-week program which provided funding, office-space, mentorship, marketing and legal advice.

Surf Air is now accepting membership applications at surfair.com and looks to sign up 500 charter members for it’s launch servicing the west coast. Surf Air is focusing it’s efforts on frequent fliers, no surprise there, but this market alone represents about 85% of the business travel industry according to the FAA. In 2011, flights between the LA area and San Francisco included more than 20 million frequent travelers. So even though it sounds geographically small, numbers-wise that is still an enormous piece of pie by any means. If they can nail the service between these cities they plan on expanding to Las Vegas, Palm Springs, San Diego, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe and the Napa Valley area although an airfield hasn’t been named. The service will begin operations in May and the flights will take off and land according to a schedule to be determined later, based on the demand of its members, according to the announcement.

According to the American Customer Satisfaction index, airlines rank dead last among 47 major industries yet the FAA estimates that demand for air travel will continue to grow. This, probably because there is no real alternative to commercial air travel. Consumers ‘put up with’ the lines, the TSA screenings and lousy food so they can get from point A to point B in a timely manner. Wade Eyerly, CEO said, “We are fulfilling a real need in the marketplace, a professional and affordable service between very popular regions. Our service can be substantially cheaper than first-class tickets, and we offer a better and less crowded experience.”

Technorati Tags: MuckerLabs, surf air, travel

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The first company to come out of the newly formed Los Angeles startup incubator/accelerator MuckerLabs, Santa Monica based Lifecrowd, just announced they will be opening up for business in three new areas, San Diego, Orange County and San Francisco in addition to Los Angeles, the original test market.

LA has long been looked over when it comes to VC interest, as well as funding. In the first three quarters of 2011 alone, LA based companies received around $298.6 million in funding, which was less than a tenth of what companies in Silicon Valley raised in the same time period according to a Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the National Venture Capital Association.

The idea behind Lifecrowd is simple, as co-founder Bong Koh says, “We just help you meet new people and try new activities”. Activities can range anywhere from sushi making to rock climbing and wine tasting, with the emphasis being on quality of the experience and not sheer volume of events. Koh goes on to say, “and the emphasis is on local, but also casual, intimate and social – those are the words we use to describe ourselves”.

By focusing on quality Lifecrowd employs a number of curators as well as social filters using Facebook data to trim down activities with users experience in mind. They aim for groups between 8 and 10 people, large enough for socialization, without being overwhelming. The mashup video below shows a typical set of activities including grilling, line dancing and more. Users can find activities by neighborhood as well as activity type, and in addition they can review personalized recommendations based on Facebook filtering and interests.The site also lists a whole section on volunteer opportunities, great for those who want to help out their community, but don’t quite know where to start or whats available.

So next time you are looking for something to do, or are tasked with organizing a dodgeball game, a wine tasting for friends, or looking to volunteer, Lifecrowd might be a great place to start.

Technorati Tags: Lifecrowd, MuckerLabs, Social Discovery, Social Media

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For the first time ever, streaming video could overtake DVD and Blu-ray disc viewing in 2012, according to a recent forecast by the media intelligence firm IHS Screen Digest. Could we be seeing the beginning of the end for physical media such as DVD’s and Blu-ray discs? How much more “extras” do studios and distributors have to stuff in the packaging to make it worthwhile to buy a disc than it is to just stream the movie instead?

According to the forecast we are definitely going to experience a decline, with physical viewings of DVD and Blu-ray discs dropping from 2.6 billion in 2011 to 2.4 billion in 2012. This while legal online viewings are set to more than double from 1.4 billion in 2011 to 3.4 billion in 2012.

Many people are comparing the crossover from disc to streaming with movies the same way Apple and iTunes impacted the market for physical CD’s in the music industry. Dan Cryan, IHS senior principal analyst said of the transition from disc to online, “…it’s likely to take time: almost nine years after the launch of the iTunes Store, CD’s are still a vital part of the music business.” Although true, the focus is more and more going to be on the Internet as a delivery vehicle, especially for products that lend themselves so well to digital delivery, like music and movies.

The IHS Study also broke down digital consumption by provider with Netflix and Amazon’s Prime accounting for 94% on all online movie consumption last year. This, despite the fact that the six major studios have effectively choked off Netflix of many high profile movies and initiated their own streaming service called UltraViolet to compete. UltraViolet, who recently secured distribution in Wal-Mart stores, still requires consumers to bring their DVD and Blu-ray discs in-store and pay a fee to have them transitioned to an online digital locker

The studios are also fighting this transition because of simple economics. According to the IHS forecast, online viewing will account for 57% of viewing but only provide 12% of studio revenue. This revenue number is exactly that, top line revenue and doesn’t take in account the cost of making that 12% of revenue which could translate in to a larger net percentage of profit when all is said and done.

Either way, the focus on the Internet as a delivery mechanism is going to be something that will shape the entertainment industry as much as probably any other industry in the US economy moving forward. Major studios have an enormous opportunity in front of them to embrace changes and take in account the delivery of entertainment directly to users with the right technology.

Technorati Tags: netflix, online video, UltraViolet, Video

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1. Freshbooks: Freshbooks is a great tool for those looking for a simple online billing solution. It offers the kind of simplicity that makes it easy to integrate in your current business processes, and is perfect for companies that bill less than 300k a year, as it acts as an accounting system as well. Set-up time tracking, recurring billing, track payments and integrate with PayPal from an intuitive clean interface. Freelancers will also enjoy the simple hour-tracking features and is well worth the monthly fee starting at $29.99. They do offer 30-days free and also offer a free version of the software if you have under 3 clients. As an added benefit, Freshbooks has an API and there are several 3rd party plugins available that allow Freshbooks integration.
2. SohoOS: SohoOS is a fairly new online business management platform that performs multiple functions including contact management, inventory management, invoicing and billing, document sharing, project management and numerous management reporting options. SohoOS also has the added benefit of aspiring to let small businesses and freelancers easily find each other and collaborate globally to take advantage of economies of scale and form business partnerships and offerings easier than through traditional channels. The lofty goals of SohoOS make sense to small businesses who have been at a historic disadvantage when it comes to economies of scale, until now says SohoOS, who aim to, “leverage the power of many small-businesses to achieve a combined strength that bridges the gap in your favor.” SohoOS has a free version and a paid version at $9.95/month which includes among other enhancements, a customizable leads widget for your website, easily integrated in to a WordPress, Drupal or other CMS that funnels leads directly in to your SohoOS account.
3. Google Apps for Business: Google Apps is designed to allow small businesses to reduce IT costs by using Google’s array of business solutions as opposed to hosting their own email and other communication servers. Focused more on email and messaging solutions, Google Apps does have the advantage of a no-contract, flexible $5/month per user plan that lets small businesses and even freelancers the benefits of online collaboration, Outlook, Blackberry Enterprise interoperability and advanced communication tools hosted by Google. This is perfect for small businesses that want to start small, avoid up front setup and costly IT services. There is also the advantage of being a Google product, of which many small businesses recognize the tools and interface so there is ease of use and no learning curves and enhanced services layer in with existing products currently being used, like Google Doc’s.
4. Box: Box or Box.net as it was known, it among a growing group of cloud collaboration providers including SugarSync, Dropbox and others. I am covering Box here because in my opinion it has features better suited for businesses than personal users. But SugarSync and Dropbox are both other online collaboration alternatives to Box. Business friendly features include the ability to not only sync with Google Doc’s, but your customers don’t have to log in to Google to view the documents you share is one standout feature. They offer premium accounts starting at $9.95/month and have additional business friendly options including the ability to brand your interface. Customizing the look and feel, including your company logo allow small businesses to collaborate with prospects, customers and vendors with a professional image that would otherwise be achieved through costly technology investments. There is also a document viewer and even editor for those who wish to operate completely in the cloud.
5. DemandBase: This customer intelligence company offers a real-time ticker that companies can place on their websites to see when sought after prospects, or individuals from target companies visit the website. It allows you to find out when a blue-chip prospect is looking at your site and then offers to sell you this contact information. The database compares the IP address of visitors with information from Dunn & Bradstreet, Lexis-Nexis and other sources to match the visitors to the companies they likely work for. The average price of a lead from DemandBase is $1.80 according to an article in INC. , which also dubbed the service, “the iTunes of CRM”.

So, whether you are looking for customer retention tools, lead prospecting or just collaboration or simple messaging there is likely a solution that can fit your small business needs out there. With a little bit of research and knowing what areas of your business can use improvement, technology and some of these free tools could end up saving you more than time and money, it could save your sanity as well. Running a small business is a challenge, especially in this environment, and keeping up with technology sometimes seems like a job within itself. If you have used any of the tools on this list or would like to offer suggestions for tools to help small businesses, please share this with a colleague and add your comments or tips below.

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, online tools, small business tools

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There have been more than a few companies who have rolled out iPads on an enterprise level. From municipalities using them for surveying to business intelligence and visual communications and now restaurants and even the point-of-sales systems these businesses run on.  Unveiled at the recent Nightclub & Bar Show in Las Vegas last week, Harbortouch Tableside, part of the POS system Harbortouch offers, allows servers to input customer orders directly from the table via a free iPad application.

Demonstrating how the Harbortouch Tableside system works were servers walking the convention center floor. The application is a replica of the actual POS system itself, so there is no learning curve or additional training, provided your servers have general iPad know-how.  The orders taken from the iPad are relayed directly to the kitchen or bar, and in essence, make the big POS terminal station obsolete.

Also during the show, Harbortouch announced they would be rolling out a system to take online reservations, or take reservations directly from the POS.  This means operators who are using Harbortouch for their point-of-sale will not need to go to a third-party vendor to get sophisticated online reservation systems.  These integrations allow operators to keep all their reservations, both online and manually-entered in one place.

iPad ordering systems are nothing new, but considering Harbortouch provides operators free touch-screen POS systems, and there is no extra costs involved for using Tableside or the online ordering system, there is a good possibility we will start to see a lot more restaurants taking orders on iPads instead of note-pads.

As far as operators are concerned, it’s more than just the practical efficiencies. Aesthetics and atmosphere also play a part in decisions to use such a powerful device for simply taking an order.  Companies, however, are realizing that it is so much more than just a means to an end, and a replacement for pen and pad. iPads are great machines capable of so much more than just being a glorified notepad.  By having your servers carrying around these hip, slick, and cool devices you are, by transference, telling your patrons that you are state of the art, associating the creative vibe and energy Apple brings to life with your restaurant, drawing people to it.  As this article in Inc. points out, and one restaurant owner says, “The iPad ordering allows the restaurant to make something of a fashion statement while streamlining its ordering system”.  The owner then goes on, “The customers love it, who doesn’t like an iPad?” he says, “they go nuts”.

Below is video featuring Jared Isaacman, CEO for Harbortouch reviewing the announcements and talking about how Harbortouch’s free POS systems works and what we can look forward to from Harbortouch down the road.

Technorati Tags: Harbortouch, iPad, point of sale, POS

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Anyone who has used an online storage service such as Dropbox, Box.net, SugarSync or anything else realizes how powerful it is to be able to access forgotten powerpoint presentations, sales materials or other important documents on the fly. These are excellent options for many users, and many people do use them, but what happens when you find out that the storage service you decided on doesn’t have an app for android, or doesn’t sync with your PC or Mac? What if there is no Mac version?

This is where online document management portals come in. SurDoc, a company out of Menlo Park, CA. just announced commercial availability of their application independent platform for sharing documents and files. The service enables users to do everything that you would think of when it comes to online storage – uploading, downloading, sharing, editing and even signing. The difference lies in the accessibility of data, you don’t need an app to be able to utilize the SurDoc offering, it’s completely app and platform independent.

Sharing Made Possible by Global Document Standards

The sharing capabilities are made possible by a global document processing standard developed by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) called Unstructured Operation Markup Language or UOML for short. This allows SurDoc to serve a document with the same ‘look and feel’ of the original regardless of the hardware they are using to access the data. To date, SurDoc is the only company that offers this type of app independent solution centered around the UOML standard.

Image courtesy of Morgan Stanley

According to Suzanne Duris, Director of Marketing for SurDoc, “More Internet users are accessing the Internet through mobile devices than through any other means.” While this might be speculation, the numbers are not that far off. In fact, according to Internet analyst Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley, mobile Internet will surpass desktop Internet in just the next 5 years. While companies who already have applications specific to their service try and update software with each new technology, those who are using open standards such as UOML would be in a better position to service the growing mobile/tablet user base.

What about Security?

Most cloud storage providers have secure servers and redundant drives to backup files in the event of a catastrophe and SurDoc is no different. With RAID-5 configured servers and offline backup, it allows self-managed redundant replication of files. The servers also support SSL with 128-bit encryption to ensure data integrity.

10GB Free Online Storage

SurDoc offers a hefty 10GB free version of it’s document portal and also doesn’t limit the number of computers that can back up to one account. This is an issue for some other storage providers who only allow a certain number of computers to a free or trial account. The free version can be found here and If you end up needing more space they offer a 100GB plan for $9.99/year.

Technorati Tags: cloud computing, online storage, surdoc

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Nowadays, with time at a premium and visual based content being the latest buzz it makes sense that businesses and consumers are creating, consuming and generally interacting with more image and video content than ever. This, in addition to the new technologies in screen resolution make visual communications appealing for marketers, businesses and also individuals who are looking for new ways to interact and express themselves online, with more than just words on a page. The idea of presenting complex information in an easy to comprehend quick-to-digest format is proving to be a trend that, in my opinion, is going to continue to flourish as long as time is at a premium and businesses and individuals still need to get their messages across internally and externally.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, it sure does put textual content at a disadvantage when it comes to conveying a message that will get your point across to an audience that is as time conscience as ever.

So how are businesses and individuals actually doing this? What tools are offered to someone for putting an insightful infographic together, or creating an organizational chart, mind map, flowchart or any other piece of information that would be better displayed visually as opposed to text? Well that depends on what you are looking to do.

For infographics, Visua.ly recently launched itself as an easy-to-use self-service infographic tool that allows people without extensive graphic design knowledge to put together these popular visual communications pieces. Eventually companies will be able to use API’s from numerous third-parties such as current API providers Facebook and Twitter. Visua.ly plans to add more including ESPN, the Economist and more.

For general business and particularly project management, try SmartDraw’s software product, which integrates with MS Project, SharePoint and more. They have also just announced they have passed 1 million downloads of their product in just the last four months. This underscores the continued demand for visual communication products, particularly by everyday users who understand the need for visuals, but generally don’t have the time or technical savvy to be able to use more advanced graphic design programs. SmartDraw is designed, and aims to do for visual communications, what the word processor has done to text. SmartDraw’s Visual Processor™ automates the creation and formatting of visuals in to business documents and materials.

SmartDraw is an ideal solution for companies looking to manage complex, multi-department initiatives such as website redesigns, product launches, investor pitches and more by integrating not only with MS Project, but also Visio, SharePoint and PowerPoint. This, in addition to around 70 different pre-packaged templates, allows companies to manage projects, monitor timelines, sub-projects, dependencies and more without replicating data on a separate application saving valuable time and resources.

If you are looking for consumer video communications and entertainment based content, mobli recently launched their image and video discovery application aimed at letting users see the world through other people’s eyes. The real time platform allows users to tell their own stories using video and images. The site is arranged around channels based on people, places and topics and lets people discover what others are viewing in real time. The service also incorporates local discoverability by letting users see whats happening near them, as well as viewing what is happening “now” in real time.

These three companies are just a few examples of products/services that are designed to take advantage of the trend in visual communications in business and consumer markets. Creating and consuming content that is packaged in a way that helps save time and also enhances understanding will help companies and individuals get their messages across to audiences more efficiently and effectively.

Technorati Tags: infographics, visua.ly, visual communications

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The post-PC revolution and its more portable, more personal devices have taken yet another quantum leap forward. When Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the New iPad it became Important to the business crowd because in addition to new devices, Cook also announced a new, low price point for iPad2 – the wireless darling of the enterprise market.

Starting at just $399, the iPad2 with 16GB is perfect as an enterprise-level business tool. The new pricing seems tailor made for the trend of deploying the top-selling tablet for greater productivity, faster and smarter.

Entire companies, institutions and departments across a broad swath of sectors are outfitting employees (and in many cases, student bodies) with iPads. For enterprise, the promise of skyrocketing ROI is what makes the iPad so irresistible.

Enterprise iPads: The ROI Boosters

Apple’s latest move to make iPads price-friendly for business outfitting practically guarantees a large percentage of those sales will come from the enterprise market. Here are a few examples of what businesses – large and small – are doing with iPads, from the boardroom to the sales field and beyond.

Consider these highlights from ZDnet’s list of the Top 50 companies that have deployed iPads:

• Sears Holdings, which purchased 5,000 units, is equipping 450 of its stores with Apple iPads, to 1) train sales people, check inventory and order products online, and 2) allow in-store shoppers to access product information, to enhance the shopping experience.
• United Airlines, which deployed 11,000 units, uses iPads to provide its United and Continental pilots paperless navigation tools. The airline anticipates an enormous savings in annual fuel costs now that pilots aren’t traveling with hefty flight manuals .
• The U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command in early March announced that it has awarded a contract Apple to purchase up to 18,000 iPad2s. The military spokeswoman making the announcement cited low cost as a key factor in their decision to go with Apple iPad.

Beyond Productivity: The Next-Gen Business Apps

Myriad iPad apps for VoiP video conferencing, meeting agenda management, inventory, and even sales processing are available. Apple also encourages in-house app development, allowing companies to create precisely what they need for greater productivity and process management.

There are other, more far-reaching implications. Gartner is predicting that by 2013, about 33 percent of business intelligence functionality will be extracted from a mobile device. Combined with the fast adoption of mobile devices for business, this reflects the host of high-impact BI apps that have been hitting the market.

This class of sophisticated dashboards makes analytics and performance monitoring startlingly easy. At this rate, iPad may play a significant role in revolutionizing business development and acquisitions.

Business Intelligence Apps for iPad

The savviest, most aggressive companies are using iPads for competitive intelligence and sales calls. The business apps in this category allow a sales force to gain valuable insights before making a sales call or attending a big pitch meeting.

As an example, a BI app by FirstRain, an analytics software company, provides sales and marketing professionals with personalized, real-time customer intelligence. The app makes it incredibly easy to access, monitor and measure intensely targeted business news, moves, and information on the fly. Using this app, sales and marketing teams simply deploy an iPad to collect business intelligence, both real-time and historical info on customers, competitors, and trends. Specifically First Rain fetches smartly curated business data from the global Web. In a flash, it serves up only business-focused content from credible sources such as news sites, press releases, company Web sites, government filings, industry sources, and blogs.

Like Google Alerts on steroids – but refined and intensely stratified – these dashboard apps automate strategic intelligence gathering. They deliver high-level, hard-to-find information and stats within seconds, based on your keywords. With software like FirstRain, you can quickly:

• Understand a market
• Forecast the potential of a market
• Improve customer targeting
• Predict how the economic climate will impact a market
• Monitor competitors’ prices
• Understand what’s being offered by competitors
• Learn what’s offered and relevant in ancillary markets
• Discover new customers

One-touch Business Intelligence

Ned May, vice president and lead analyst at Outsell, says “Deploying powerfully yet instantly on a computing platform is an important step in modernizing today’s mobile workforce. But these efforts will only be as valuable as the programs that run on these tablets.”

So the question is, how smart is your company’s app for that? According to the fast-growing number of enterprise players deploying mobile technology, your brand and competitive edge might depend on it.

Technorati Tags: Apple, BI, Enterprise, iPad, iPad2

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The panel included Jack Menzel (@jackm), Search Product Management Director for Google and Rangan Majumder (@rangthang), Principal Group Program Manager, Bing.

The takeaway for me from the standpoint of Bing, because it is more straightforward is that you should keep an eye on how they use social signals, particularly Twitter going forward.  He mentioned several times about your twitter follower profile (#botornot) affecting your authority and how Bing values the influence of your social signals.  He also mentioned several times about the  quality of links in tweets and facebook posts in particular, not sure why, but i’m assuming it’s important because he made sure to remind us several times.  Rangan also visually displayed the natural sharing tendencies of social networks, had a nice graph i wish i had, of a natural network vs. a spammy network of social influence.  He pretty much put everyone on notice that if you try and game the social signals, it will work against you, like most good content, it should be shared naturally and not artificially through unscrupulous methods.

You should also check out Bing Linked Pages facebook integration and find out how you can leverage your social network to personalized search results including you and your company and other external sites.  The formula quoted by Rangan was:

Ranking of Document = authority + keyword match quality + personal preference + social preference

This allows you to add a social layer to search results, allowing individuals to curate their own results, as well as “decorate” the results of others.  Read more about Bing’s Linked Pages here.

From Google, the takeaway was simply to get your site mobile compatible.  I later realized that according to some research done and I have embedded below, mobile is growing at a healthy clip, and surprisingly not at the expense of desktop search.  This means they can capitalize on mobile without cannibalizing their existing advertising from desktop devices.  This could be a huge revenue stream if sites would just get their sites to show up on mobile devices says Jack.

In fact “home” was one of the top destinations identified as places people are using their mobile devices.  This coupled with the fact that only around 34% of websites are mobile optimized and mobile user demographics make them a valuable target for marketers, it’s no wonder Mr. Menzel was urging SEO’s in the room to get their sites to just “display” on mobile devices.  Around 95% of users look for local content on their mobile devices.  You can also consider that advertising dollars follow consumers across platforms and Google seems to be currently betting on the growth of mobile to drive ad revenue going forward.  Local, mobile all revolve around users being able to view websites properly on mobile devices and find what they are looking for so they can take all those actions mobile users are known for.  87% of US smartphone users take some sort of action after looking up local content.  Will marketers get the message?  Time will tell, but for now there are several resources to make sites “mobile” here.

Global Insights on SmartPhone Users & Mobile Marketers:

Technorati Tags: Bing, Google SPYW, smx

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You can find the original article here.

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Flickr updated homepage due in February 28, 2012.

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Why Watch These 3 Web Analytics Metrics?

For many webmasters, measuring website performance – and acting on the findings – is just this side of an obsession. Luckily there are great measurement tools – i.e., Web analytics programs – to steer us toward business growth online.

Improving your sales leads and conversions online begins with: a) learning where your traffic comes from, and b) understanding how visitors interact with your site. This data can easily be obtained by using a Web analytics program.

Google Analytics Delivers the Basic Metrics

There are several good software programs available, but one great analytics program to start with is Google Analytics, there are great support forums and Google provides a lot of advanced tracking for ecommerce and transactions, download, lead forms and more as well. This is a Web-based software program that’s easy to set up, especially if you’re using a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla because there are usually pre-packaged plugins available, plus it’s fairly straightforward to implement in it’s default state anyway.

Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, and if you’re just starting out with it, using it can be rather intimidating. However, there are three key metrics that will greatly help you. Let’s review them . . .

Visitors

The Visitors Overview page (the first tab in the Audience section) shows:

• Unique Visitors,
• Total Visitors,
• Number of Page Views,
• Number of Pages Viewed per Visit,
• Average Time on Site,
• Bounce Rate, and
• Percentage of New Visits.

Most of these are pretty self-explanatory. For the first five of these metrics, the higher the number, the better.

Conversely, aim to keep your bounce rate low. This metric shows the number of people who came to your site, but left right away. The lower the bounce rate the better, because it indicates that more people found what they were looking for at your site, whether it was information, a download, etc.

The last metric, percentage of new visitors, reflects the share of first-time visitors. Most webmasters would like to see a good balance of new and returning visitors.  Depending on the type of business you’re in, this breakdown should tell you something about where to focus either acquisition or retention campaigns.

Traffic Sources

Here, you’ll see how people discovered your site. The Traffic Sources overview shows how much of your traffic:

• came from a search engine
• was referred by other sites, and
• accessed your site directly (Direct) or
• came from a specific campaign.

Reviewing your traffic sources frequently gives you valuable insights into where your traffic’s coming from, where your efforts are most effective, and where you have room for improvement.

It can also help you work smarter. For example, if you’re spending 4 hours a day on Twitter and only getting 50 visitors a day from there, your time will probably be better spent promoting your site elsewhere.  You can also drill down on any of these metrics to compare and further analyze traffic  once at your site, for instance drilling to the keyword level on search engine traffic can tell you which keywords drive search engine traffic and at what percentage.  You also have the ability to set-up branded vs. non-branded terms to get an idea of whether people coming to your site are looking for your brand specifically or if they found your site looking for a category of services, or maybe something else.

Content

The Content Overview Page gives you a summary of how your Web pages are viewed along with the most viewed pages list.

For more detailed information you should open the Content Drilldown tab in the Site Content dropdown menu. You’ll see how your pages are being viewed by looking at the “Avg. Time on Page,” “Bounce Rate,” and “% Exit” columns.

What you can glean:

A shorter time on page and higher bounce rate may mean that you have a page that’s driving readers out of your site. You may want to dedicate more “real estate” to your most popular pages. This can help keep people on your site longer.

Google Analytics provides much more valuable information than the data described above, but these will definitely help you learn about your website performance.

Supercharge Your Web Analytics Learning

Of course, you wouldn’t stop with the basic analysis above. Integrating analytic information with an SEO platform such as GinzaMetrics can come pretty close to closing the SEO loop with advanced analysis of traffic sources matched with ecommerce measurement and then actionable tasks to enhance your profitability and the ROI of your campaigns.

GinzaMetrics is an analytics/SEO dashboard that gathers intelligence on various aspects of a sites SEO, along with data enhanced by SEOmoz’s Site Intelligence API and presents the user with a top down list of things that will help the site rank better. The software service allows you to monitor several additional aspects of your site’s metrics.   The software is delivered as a service and priced to meet the needs of small to mid-sized enterprises whose web presence makes their SEO a critical part of business success.

What’s more, GinzaMetrics helps you:

• Choose the best set of keywords,
• Write stronger title tags, Identify page elements that need improvement, and
• Coordinate your SEO efforts across departments, involving marketing and technical teams.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure, the saying goes.  So for starters, using Google Analytics and looking at the basic metrics above will get you a great start and if you feel you need more advanced site intelligence, competitor analysis and a step by step SEO platform that people even unfamiliar with SEO can manage, GinzaMetrics could be worth looking in addition to your Google Analytics.

Technorati Tags: Analytics, GA, Google Analytics

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Above the Fold

Originally published by myself on Technorati as: Google Algorithm Change Requires User-Friendly Page Layout

Web publishers and bloggers beware: If you’re displaying many ads “above the fold,” Google’s latest algorithm change may swoop down like a Navy SEAL team on your website. You might suddenly find your Web pages buried, six-feet under on the search results pages.

It’s happening to many site publishers around the Web, on sites the search engine bot now deems too ad-heavy up top. When the bot spots sites like this, the offending site takes a hit in page rank. For the site owner, this means fewer people will see your Web pages during searches.

SEO Headline News: New Page Layout Mandate

Announced on January 19th, Google calls it a “page layout algorithm improvement.” Specifically, Web sites will be penalized when the content takes a glaring backseat to the advertisements. If you have too many ads in and around your header, you’ll be sorry. Even if their Google ads.

The search giant says it’s making the new page layout “suggestion” as a result of user complaints. When people click-through and can’t quickly find the content they’ve searched for, they feel frustrated . . . by a barrage of advertisements. As a result, they don’t have a great experience on that website.
Never mind that Google had a hand in creating this ads-first culture, of heavy selling above the fold.

What Does “Above the Fold” Mean?

“Above the Fold” is actually a newspaper industry term, but it’s been adapted as a Web design principle, too. It originally referred to the front page of a newspaper, specifically the top half – the part most visible to customers at a newsstand.

The theory is, when you want to induce sales, place your hottest headlines and news content above the paper’s “fold.” That best practice translated to the Web means to place your best content before any scrolling down is necessary. Information placed in this prime location immediately catches the eye and entices engagement.

Make sure your actual content is visible up top. Decrease the number of adverts that greet your visitors. Rearrange your ads, possibly moving some further down on the page, below “the fold.”

For the most part, the SEO community has responded positively to the latest algorithm change. In a phone interview this morning, Ray Grieselhuber, SEO industry veteran and CEO of GinzaMetrics, an enterprise SEO company based in Mountain View, Calif., says, “This is change the Web publishing community should believe in. It’s clearly a quality move, one targeting a more user-friendly environment across the entire Internet,”

Use the Browser Size Tool

Google’s free Browser Size Tool provides a visualization of how different browser window sizes allow your content to be seen. Type the URL of your various Web pages here – Browser Size Tool – and you’ll see a chart that should help.

Google hasn’t gone on record about the ratio of content-to-advertisements the page layout algorithm will penalize. However, the company says it expects about 1 percent of all Google search results to be affected.

Interestingly, Google doesn’t follow its own new rule. Do a Google search for your basic, popular search term, and plenty of above-the-fold Google ads are still displayed.  But putting their “do as I say, not as I do” policy aside, it’s still a virtuous guideline worth following. As Grieselhuber of GinzaMetrics says, “The new page layout scheme should actually benefit Web publishers. If it results in longer user engagement as expected, the bounce rate on many sites should improve.”

The good news is that if your bounce rate decreases, you’ll be in a better position to gain page rank – and ultimately more search engine-referred traffic. So, why look a potential gift horse in the mouth?

Technorati Tags: Algorithm Changes, Google, UI, user friendly design, UX

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How great would it be to secure business funding for your online venture? If getting your hands on some quick “cabbage” would help your Internet business, innovative Kabbage.com may offer the perfect solution.

Get Green and Keep Growing with Kabbage

A Web-based cash advance service, Kabbage funds small businesses that sell goods online, particularly on platforms such as Etsy, eBay, and Amazon.  Not to be confused with a “loan,” a Kabbage cash advance has helped thousands of online business owners keep succeeding. It’s a great funding source for help purchasing more inventory, supplies or advertising. You can also use your infusion of fresh cabbage to pay employees, contractors, and outsourced help.  Similarly, the company recognizes that although an online business processes orders and sales online, there’s still a need for extra cash, to handle offline expenses. Simply put, Kabbage throws many small online businesses the lifeline they need to thrive.
Launched in late 2010, Kabbage exclusively funds U.S.-based online sellers. If you ask about business funding for a bricks-and-mortar initiative, they won’t approve the request.
Lettuce Get Kabbage Without Hassles
Interestingly – and conveniently – Kabbage delivers the cash advance to your PayPal account. Once approved, they send the money quickly, too – often in less than 10 minutes! If you don’t have a PayPal account, they’ll deposit to your checking account. The money becomes accessible in one to three days, max.
Decisions are based on your online sales volume, customer satisfaction ratings, and credit scores.  The company stresses, though, that a credit score alone isn’t their ultimate deciding factor. A decent track record of sales and healthy customer reviews carry weight.

Innovative Kabbage, Plowing the Future for Online Businesses

A diverse group of online sellers have received Kabbage cash thus far. Among them: a cowboy boot restoration company and an e-commerce site that sells cosmetics for professional models. So far, over 4,000 Internet businesses have been served, with many of them approved for online business funding more than once.

What makes Kabbage a business model whose time has come is that it fills a crucial void created by the banking system. Banks don’t understand the needs of e-commerce business owners. In a recent article in Forbes, Marc Gorlin, co-founder and chairman at Kabbage stated, “We’re seeing really unquenchable thirst to get working capital, they’re not being serviced by sources at banks. (Banks) don’t understand the data around their businesses.” That, or they simply don’t value most small online businesses. Banks ask for collateral and years of business history, documentation that most online businesses and particularly those using Amazon, eBay or Etsy have, either because they are new or just don’t have the “right documents”. The Small Business Administration, another traditional source for small business funding, also has rules, regulations and requirements that aren’t ideal for the kind of fast funding an online merchant might need.

Unlike the small business loan approval process with a large, bureaucratic bank, Kabbage moves at the speed of the Internet.

With Kabbage, Payback Is a Cinch

The company doesn’t exactly reveal the maximum amount of “cabbage” they advance small businesses. They only say that it varies, depending on your sales volume and how long you’ve been in operating.

What is made clear, though, is that Kabbage works with business owners on repayment. You have up to six months to repay the cash advance, making payments via PayPal or your checking account. You can pay-off the cash advance by making monthly payments, at a minimum rate of one-sixth the amount you received. Also, you’ll owe a flat fee of $100 at the end of your first 30 days.

If you need some cabbage fast, Kabbage.com aims to help. And it seems to be entering with good timing, particularly since many banks have turned more small business-unfriendly than ever.

Technorati Tags: amazon, ebay, Social Media

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