Posts tagged Global
Global SEO: Giving Visitors a Passport to Your Content – ClickZ
Feb 8th
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Global SEO: Giving Visitors a Passport to Your Content
ClickZ Many large organizations that operate on a global scale struggle with organizing SEO strategies across content owners within each country. Oftentimes, businesses will opt for what's easier and host their country-specific content on one main domain … |
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Global Keyword Bid Optimization With OptiMine
Feb 6th
OptiMine is Bid Optimization Software that claims it “improves paid search results by 25 percent or more and backs up the results with the industry’s only performance-based price guarantee.” OptiMine is focused on maximizing the performance of paid search campaigns to achieve financial goals. Their strategy is to analyze the individual click, cost, conversion and [...]
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How YouTube is Part of a Global Economic Transformation
Feb 2nd
The Internet may have grown up first in the United States, but it’s a global phenomenon now. The same can be said for the fast-growing body of educational content on the web. YouTube announced a new batch of partners that were added to its Education Channel today and noted that nearly 80% of the viewership of educational content on the site came from outside the United States. Less than 70% of the site’s total traffic is International, so the educational content is disproportionately viewed by global audiences.
Both YouTube and iTunes U are serving up huge quantities of educational content to a world already in the throws of a 50 year revolution in global education. In some ways they represent exactly the kind of education that a new world needs, too: learning that augments existing education and fosters life-long development of non-routine analytical and interactive skills. That’s a recipe for good times.
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YouTube now hosts more than 500,000 educational videos, on a wide variety of topics. The new mobile-friendly iTunes U also offers 500,000 educational resources and says that 60% of its viewership comes from outside the United States. This global consuption of US-created online educational content may be the newest chapter in a radical transformation of global education over the past 50 years. Life in this world is not like it used to be just a few decades ago, and the availability of world-class education on-demand, at almost no cost, is likely to help things change all the more as this century unfolds.
Global Transformation
“During the past 50 years, the expansion of education has contributed to a fundamental transformation of societies in OECD countries,” wrote the authors of this year’s lengthy report Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators. (500 page PDF, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
“In 1961, higher education was the privilege of the few, and even upper secondary education was denied to the majority of young people in many countries. Today, the great majority of the population completes secondary education, one in three young adults has a tertiary degree [Colleges, universities and polytechnics] and, in some countries, half of the population could soon hold a tertiary degree.”
In other words, it’s not an uneducated world gaining its first access to the information available in these free online education repositories. What’s happening is augmentation of already historic global education levels.
Below: The United States used to be the most educated society in the world. That’s no longer true. Click to view full size. From the OECD.
“Half a century ago, employers in the United States and Canada recruited their workforce from a pool of young adults, most of whom had high school diplomas and one in four of whom had degrees – far more than in most European and Asian countries,” reports the OECD. “Today, while North American graduation rates have increased, those of some other countries have done so much faster, to the extent that the United States now shows just over the average proportion of tertiary-level graduates at age 25-34.”
“It has become increasingly evident that to realise human potential in today’s societies and economies, lifelong learning is required, not just an initial period of formal schooling.” – OECD
The OECD recognizes that formal education has a meaningful connection to economic development, but that the two are not equivelant. “The level of education that an adult has completed may be a proxy for the competencies that contribute to economic success, but it is a highly imperfect measure,” the report says.
“First, each country has its own different processes and standards for accrediting completion of secondary or tertiary education. Second, the knowledge and skills acquired in education are by no means identical to those that enhance economic potential. And third, it has become increasingly evident that to realise human potential in today’s societies and economies, lifelong learning is required, not just an initial period of formal schooling.” (emphasis added)
That lifelong learning no doubt contributes to the global audience that amasses around this educational content online. For a high school teacher to be able to give their lectures not to 30 students at a time, but to 100,000 viewers around the world on YouTube has got to be a powerful opportunity. If many of those viewers are adults, so be it.
What’s hot? Non-routine analytic and non-routine interactive skills. Those are things that a good YouTube or iTunes U video about world history or global ecology can help improve.
Learning new information that helps inform our understanding of the world is, in fact, growing more important for economic well-being than the development of routine skills.
According to a presentation (10 page PDF) by Francesc Pedró, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Research and Information, OECD, the last 50 years have seen a dramatic change in the types of skills in demand in the workforce. A trend began, at least in the United states, as far back as 1985: demand for “routine manual skills” has held relatively steady, demand for non-routine manual skills has plummeted. Demand for routine cognitive skills climbed through 1970, then fell. What’s hot? Non-routine analytic and non-routine interactive skills.
Those are things that a good YouTube or iTunes U video about world history or global ecology can help improve, your non-routine analytic and interactive skills. More than for just economic well-being, those are skills that positively impact quality of life in many ways.
Disruption
“A new phase of education change awaits the world, for those who embrace it,” writes radical Canadian educator Joe Bower in a summary of last month’s 2012 International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) in Malmö, Sweden.
A central message of the 25th ICSEI conference was that change brings challenge but also opportunity, with the need to find new means of collaboration, participation and networking to reshape education for the shifting demands ahead. A whole range of papers and presentations from 450 delegates from over 50 countries set an optimistic tone, with strong commonality in themes of respect, trust, new power relations and moving to evaluation as joint enterprise. In presentations from Iceland to Malaysia there were common threads of renewing teacher professionalism, establishing change via collaborative networks, and emphasizing systems perspectives through linkage and understanding, rather than prescription and grading…
“The central message of ICSEI 2012 was of strong common issues facing schools and their communities in far separated contexts, with global similarities in connecting responses. A few countries stood out in stark contrast, chastising schools and denigrating teachers, seeing change not as opportunity for partners in prospect, refashioning and renewing learning, but as a threat to be sanctioned in audit prescription. But whilst those systems are shrill and close at hand, a more pervasive and positive way forward was signposted in Malmö to a new responsible professionalism, embracing complexity and change, more loosely configured in uncertainty yet promise.”
Good luck, teachers of the world, keeping up with the Internet. It’s great to hear that so many are embracing change, surely caused by technology, as an opportunity and not a threat.
That’s the kind of life-long learning that professional development has always required but that will go on in a global context for perpetual learning with increasing access to high-quality educational content online.
That’s a recipe for a very different world than the one we lived in last century.
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Google Dominates Global Paid Search as 2011 Holiday Online Shopping Sets New Records
Jan 17th
comScore reports significant YoY increases in online holiday shopping revenue, with a new record of $37.2 billion in retail e-commerce spend over November and December. In addition, paid search budgets increased 31 percent over 2010, while click c…
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Will Yahoo Remain A Global Player Under Scott Thompson?
Jan 10th
For Yahoo, the new year got underway with the appointment of a new leader, Scott Thompson. Mr. Thompson’s appointment was announced on the 4th of January with him due to take up his responsibilities at the beginning of this week — so right now, he’ll be meeting his new team and…
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Search Marketers Value Social, Global; Plan to Increase SEM Tech Spend in 2012
Jan 6th
Brands recognize that search marketing has a strong ROI, with 72 percent of recently surveyed search marketers indicating they plan to increase their SEM technology spend this year over 2011. 26 percent foresee spending at the same level, while ju…
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Covario Study Finds Holiday Season Pushes Global Search Ad Spending by Tech … – MarketWatch (press release)
Jan 4th
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Covario Study Finds Holiday Season Pushes Global Search Ad Spending by Tech …
MarketWatch (press release) SAN DIEGO, CA, Jan 04, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Covario, Inc., the nation's largest independent provider of search marketing agency services and SEO software solutions, today issued its Global Search Spending Analysis, reporting that spending … |
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Yobongo Opens Global Chat & Private Rooms, “iPhone Is Just The Start”
Jan 3rd
Friday night, New-Year’s-Eve Eve, I had just stepped away from my blogging station when Yobongo CEO Caleb Elston recommended I open the app. That’s interesting, I thought to myself. I never had to download an update. I’ve been watching Yobongo since it launched. It has only been open in Austin, New York and San Francisco since its debut, but I’ve kept my version updated, anyway. When it launched in my area, I didn’t want to miss it.
So when I opened Yobongo on Friday, my first thought was, There must be a Web app in here somewhere. My second thought was, Oh, wow! Global Yobongo chat and private rooms are open to everyone! So that’s the news. You can now use Yobongo no matter where you are, although the location-specific rooms are still only in select cities. But there’s more. As Caleb told me coyly, “iPhone is just the start” for Yobongo. “We want to help people communicate more efficiently,” Elston says, and that means everybody.
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I was wrong about the Web app part. Elston explained to me that they simply put some switches to enable the new functionality later. But I was barking up the right tree. Yobongo uses links sent via email and SMS to connect users. That makes it easy for Yobongans – a word I just made up – to communicate across different device platforms. For now, it’s still iPhone only, but Elston has given me the distinct impression that this won’t be the case for long.
The Transition From Texting
I’m home in Atlanta for the holidays, and, fortunately, so are tons of my friends. Now that I finally could, I decided to beta test Yobongo with them. When Elston contacted me, I was on my way to see those friends at the time, and a great many of them have iPhones. So I created a private chat room for us, invited them all via a Web link in an SMS message, and told them what Yobongo does.
“It’s a live, persistent chat room,” I told them. “There are public rooms and private rooms.” I was improvising based on the new version. “There’s a global room now, and soon, there will be local, neighborhood-based rooms, so you can meet people around you. We can use this private room I made, and it also has direct messages.” They got the idea.
We already used Apple’s native iMessage for this, but group texting is annoying. It’s hard to tell who sent the message, some people don’t have group messaging turned on, et cetera. The new Yobongo features made the transition easy. It just used the contacts on my phone. I could send them invitations via SMS or email, and when they clicked on the link and downloaded the free app, they were in.
A Sense of Place
My friends are geeks in that they are the kind of people who have smartphones. But they aren’t geek geeks. They consider my obsession with the details and minute improvements of applications to be somewhat embarrassing. For my part, I think that makes them perfect beta testers.
I brought in a Web designer, a pro photographer, a third-year medical student, a senior congressional staffer and an Interscope-signed rock drummer. That’s a pretty good range of the geek spectrum, and only one is as OCD about apps as I am.
To my delight, the adoption was instantaneous. Everyone remarked on how the faces and simple bios, as well as the graceful, in-line photos, created a feeling of being together. When I explained that the goal Yobongo declared at launch was to bring new people together based on location, they understood. You could meet people here and then keep in touch with them, as well as bring your outside friends into the conversation.
Some Compromises
I won’t overlook the negatives. Some of the less native-feeling functionality had downsides that put a few bumps in the road. All my guinea pigs friends were frustrated by the app’s tendency to refresh when launching instead of bringing you back to your last screen. This morning, I noticed that the performance was a bit faster, and I could leave the app briefly and get right back to where I was. It doesn’t feel all the way native yet – though Elston assures me it is – but it’s getting there.
Another feature we want is access to the address book on the front screen, so we can invite our friends straight into private messages. As it is, you have to invite them through a private room first, and then you can message them. Presumably, when the beta period is over, the prominent ‘Feedback’ button can be replaced with this. In the meantime, Yobongo feels like exactly what it is: a work in progress by creative people who are open to suggestions.
Beta, But Beautiful
The global Yobongo room is clearly labeled as a beta, and the local rooms for your location are still in the menu, even if they aren’t open yet. So Yobongo currently feels like a sandbox. That is to say, it’s childlike, a little messy, playful and fun. Meet people, mess around, take pictures of your burritos, who cares? Talking to strangers in IM is good practice for real life.
I met Elston for coffee in San Francisco last October, and we discussed awkwardness. That’s the problem he was talking about solving with Yobongo. Awkwardness is in the mind, we agreed, and communication is the cure. Text messaging is awkward. It’s hard to type with thumbs, auto-correct can be hilarious and embarrassing, and, with groups, it’s hard to tell who said what. The little touches of Yobongo warm up the medium.
My friends and I planned our whole New Year’s Eve in our Yobongo room. And now that we’re starting to fly back to our respective new homes, we’re still using it, sharing little updates and hanging out live with one another for a few minutes at a time. It’s almost like we never left.
iPhone Is Just The Start
Thanks to Yobongo, Twitter, Instagram and a little bit of real life, I’ve gotten to know some of this team. The Yobongo people care about quality. They meditate in the office. They wouldn’t make compromises without a reason. So I know there’s something behind this functionality, the reconnecting on launch, the email and SMS invitations, things that the iPhone can do more natively, but Yobongo doesn’t.
“I’m just going to ask this straight up,” I said to Elston. “Is all this Web and email and SMS stuff setting the stage for a cross-platform adventure?”
“iPhone is just the start,” he replied. He followed with the Yobongo mantra, “We want to help people communicate more efficiently,” and then he changed the subject. “Standing in line for a burrito,” he said, and he sent me a picture.
If you have an iPhone, visit the App Store and try out Yobongo with your iPhone-wielding friends. See if it’s as natural for you as it was for me and mine. And non-iPhone folks should stay tuned, because that burrito pic was some serious sleight of hand.
How do you communicate with groups of friends at once?
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SEOPartner Serves in New York, Dominates the Global SEO Arena – PR Web (press release)
Dec 21st
 PR Web (press release) |
SEOPartner Serves in New York, Dominates the Global SEO Arena
PR Web (press release) SEOPartner continues its quest for global domination in the SEO industry as it crosses over oceans and does business in all the four corners of the world. It has already tapped the US market and is now serving New York and other leading metropolitan … |
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Former Caterpillar Global Brand Manager Jen Wilfong Joins Slingshot SEO as VP … – MarketWatch (press release)
Dec 20th
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Former Caterpillar Global Brand Manager Jen Wilfong Joins Slingshot SEO as VP …
MarketWatch (press release) INDIANAPOLIS, IN, Dec 20, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Jen Wilfong, a 25-year veteran of Caterpillar Inc., has joined Slingshot SEO as Vice President of Marketing. "We are delighted to add Jen's decades of marketing experience and success at a … |
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