Posts tagged need
Need a Cheat Sheet for Social Media?
Feb 1st
Well, Flowtown made a fantastic one and we want to share it with you. Now obviously many of us do not need this cheat sheet, but there are plenty of people that do! Like clients and parents. I have emailed this to many this morning. I also like the representation of audience sizes for clients. [...]
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Need a Cheat Sheet for Socal Media?
Jan 31st
Well, Flowtown made a fantastic one and we want to share it with you. Now obviously many of us do not need this cheat sheet, but there are plenty of people that do! Like clients and parents. I have emailed this to many this morning. I also like the representation of audience sizes for clients. [...]
Follow SEJ on Twitter @sejournal
View full post on Search Engine Journal
What You Need To Know About Targeting iPad & Tablet Searchers
Jan 30th
“2012 will be the year of the tablet,” said Kenshoo CMO Aaron Goldman in a recent Search Insider column. With the figures he’s seeing, it’s hard to disagree with him. According to Goldman, 7% of all online sales Kenshoo saw over the holidays came from a tablet, and “Of the sales transactions…
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View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
What You Need to Know About Brand Building vs. SEO – Entrepreneur
Jan 30th
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What You Need to Know About Brand Building vs. SEO
Entrepreneur BY AJ Kumar | January 30, 2012| There's no doubt you should aim to both build brand awareness and improve your company website's search engine optimization (SEO). But how should you plan your marketing efforts when the two priorities don't always align … Reach and Frequency: SEO Secret to Brand Building on Google? Is SEO Dead? How to Get Ahead of Google $500 PER PERSON DISCOUNT ON A APRIL BURGUNDY BARGE CRUISE |
View full post on SEO – Google News
Why Does the Next Xbox Need Discs At All?
Jan 26th
If the next generation of Microsoft’s Xbox gaming system will be designed to bring us well beyond 2020, why would it still rely on last century’s technology – spinning discs – for games?
Videogame blog Kotaku reported yesterday that the next Xbox – still not yet announced by Microsoft – will support Blu-ray discs, and may incorporate some sort of technology that prevents users from playing used games.
Isn’t a more future-thinking move to skip discs altogether and switch to an Internet powered game store?
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As Apple’s iOS App Store has shown, there’s huge interest in downloadable games – both on behalf of consumers and developers. You can bet that if Apple’s living room devices – either a proper Apple television set, or today’s Web set-top box – ever support gaming, there won’t be discs involved. And Microsoft itself even already supports some downloadable games for the Xbox today – and Windows 8 apps tomorrow – plus plenty of streaming video.
So why not move the entire Xbox platform in that direction? That would give Microsoft complete control over game sales and distribution: No more dealing with physical disc inventory, dingy game retailers, or the pesky used-game market at all. That’s the way the movie industry is moving, the PC industry, and the handheld gaming market. So why not consoles?
if the next Xbox really will rely on Blu-ray discs for games, my guess is that the reasons are bandwidth first, storage second, and movies third.
Regarding bandwidth, Kotaku notes that Blu-ray discs can contain 25-50 GB worth of data, versus 9 GB for DVDs. Over the average U.S. home Internet connection, that could take several hours – or even days – to download. At that point, running out to the local game store is actually faster than downloading the game, especially if it’s a brand new game and you want to play it soon after it’s released.
And if more ISPs eventually start limiting how much bandwidth you can consume per month, or charging by the gigabyte downloaded, Microsoft could also hedge against that by using discs for games.
Then there’s the storage issue. If you have 5 or 10 games sitting around, taking up 25-50 GB each, that’s a pretty big hard drive you’d need to include in the standard Xbox 720, or whatever they’ll call it. Storage is getting cheaper, but it’s still a cost to figure into the pricing equation.
Plus, the addition of Blu-ray support would make the Xbox a better movie machine, perhaps the main advantage the PS3 has enjoyed over the Xbox 360. While streaming movies are the future, and even today’s Xbox is set up to take advantage of that, Blu-ray isn’t a total flop: Some 33.5 million homes in the U.S. had Blu-ray at the end of September 2011, up 50+% year-over-year, according to DEG, a trade group. That’s about half of the roughly 70 million U.S. households with HDTVs. Blu-ray disc sales also grew 58% year-over-year in Q3 2011.
Some combination of these reasons could end up encouraging Microsoft to support discs – specifically, Blu-ray – for at least the next generation of videogame console. The future is probably downloadable or streaming games, but until we get better bandwidth, it’s not practical for everyone yet.
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Why Blogs Need SEO – QueryClick (blog)
Jan 25th
 QueryClick (blog) |
Why Blogs Need SEO
QueryClick (blog) Once I'd delved deeper into the world of SEO and had attended my vital SEO 101 crash course, however, I discovered a few tricks of the trade that let the bloggers themselves do all the work and which also helps them achieve better results for their … Headline – SEO – A Work Of Art Addresses Deceptive Practices and False … 4+ Recommendations To Enhance B2B SEO Initiatives 4 SEO Resolutions for 2012 |
View full post on SEO – Google News
Small Businesses Need an Internet Presence and SEO Services to Survive … – SBWire (press release)
Jan 23rd
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Small Businesses Need an Internet Presence and SEO Services to Survive …
SBWire (press release) Vpromise is a company dedicated to turning a company's fortunes around through high quality SEO services which will see the client's website ranked on the first page of Google. Vpromise also pledge to transform a company's conversion rate. |
View full post on SEO – Google News
SEO Campaigns Need To Attract Quality Traffic, Not Just Quantity Says Punch – Emailwire (press release)
Jan 17th
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SEO Campaigns Need To Attract Quality Traffic, Not Just Quantity Says Punch
Emailwire (press release) COM, January 17, 2012 ) Leicestershire, UK — When researching keywords for search engine optimisation (SEO) campaigns many businesses will naturally opt for those that are searched for the most, however, in some cases these terms are fairly open and … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
What You Need to Know About ICANN’s New Generic Top Level Domains
Jan 12th
Today could be a day in the history where we look back and say, “that was the day the Internet fundamentally changed.” Today is the day that the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) opens up its new registry for generic Top Level Domains that will have a profound affect on how people find and consume information on the Web. Will it be a gold rush? Is this the end of the “.com” era as we have come to know it?
A top level domain is part of the core of the how the Internet organizes and parses the names of websites. The most common, of course, is .com, but other TLDs are .net, .org or certain country domains like .CO or .UK. ICANN’s new gTLDs will allow companies, governments or other organizations to register unique strings. For instance, are we about to enter the era of .pepsi? See below for everything you need to know about the new domain name system.
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Why and How
ICANN believes that the new gTLD system will be a boon for the Internet economy. Startups, business, entrepreneurs and governments will all be allowed to own and manage their own little portion of the Internet, if they so choose.
Here is ICANN’s reasoning:
“One of ICANN’s key commitments is to promote competition in the domain name market while ensuring Internet security and stability. New generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) help achieve that commitment by paving the way for increased consumer choice by facilitating competition among registry service providers. Soon entrepreneurs, businesses, governments and communities around the world will be able to apply to operate a Top-Level Domain registry of their own choosing.”
Many people think that the new gTLD system will start a gold rush for new domains. To a certain extent this is true. A lot of companies will be bidding big money to retain their trademarks as a gTLD. ICANN will not hold a trademarked name for a specific gTLD just because that company owns the trademark. On the other hand, owning a gTLD is a big organizational and financial responsibility that will be prohibitive to many brands and enterprises.
For instance, the base financial commitment for entry for a gTLD is $185,000. If you thought you would waltz in and grab your last name as a TLD, you are probably not going to be able to. Hence, it is unlikely that we are going to start seeing individuals with personal URLs like “joe.smith.” In this case, Mr. Smith would need to pay for the gTLD and prove to ICANN that he and his organization can support the strict requirements of owning a gTLD.
“Please note that applying for a new gTLD is not the same as buying a domain name. An applicant for a new gTLD is, in fact, applying to create and operate a registry business supporting the Internet’s domain name system. This involves a number of significant responsibilities, as the operator of a new gTLD is running a piece of visible Internet infrastructure.”
The financial commitment is more than just $185,000 that serves as an evaluation fee. A deposit of $5,000 is required with the application. As a gTLD owner, an entity is required to be the keeper of that domain. That means the company will, in one way or another, be responsible for every other URL that pops up using the new name. In the Smith scenario, whoever owns the Smith gTLD would be responsible for the organization, security and infrastructure of the domain name. After a domain is approved, there is a $6,250 monthly fee and a $0.25 per transaction fee after the first 50,000 transactions in a calendar year.
ICANN does not know how many applications it will receive in this first round of new gTLDs. Entities can apply for domains from today (Jan. 12) until April 12, 2012. This round will contain a maximum of 500 new gTLDs applications and subsequent batches will be limited to 400.
The application and review process is extensive. We are not going to see new gTLDs crop up tomorrow or even next week or next month. The review process for each application can take anywhere between nine and 20 months.
“There are several stages that an application may pass through prior to a final determination being rendered. Those stages are Administrative Check, Initial Evaluation, Extended Evaluation, String Contention, Dispute Resolution and Pre-delegation. The shortest path for a successful application is to pass Administrative Check (lasting 2 months), Initial Evaluation (lasting 5 months) and then move to Pre-delegation (lasting approximately 2 months) without any Objections filed or String Contention concerns. In this case the evaluation process could take as little as 9 months to complete. On the other hand if an application does not pass Initial Evaluation and elects Extended Evaluation and/or is in the Dispute Resolution or String Contention stages then the evaluation process could take up to 20 months to complete (or longer in the event that unforeseen circumstances arise).”
New applications will be assessed by independent third-party expert panels.
Next Page: What gTLDs will look like and other issues and concerns . . .
You Don’t Need A College Degree to Be a Great Coder
Jan 7th
Okay, so we all know that both Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg never finished their Harvard degrees, and look where they are now. But for the rest of us who just aspire to have a full time job, let alone an equity share in a hot startup, is a college degree really necessary to code? Maybe not, according to this blog post from Good Technology.
Erin Biba, who wrote the post back in November, asks: “Programming isn’t accounting. It requires creative thinkers and problem solvers, people unlikely to thrive in the confines of a college classroom. So why do hiring managers apply traditional methods to a nontraditional job?”
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Exactly. And she cites a recent study by Dice.com that puts the number of available tech jobs at more than 84,000. While not all of them are programmers, certainly a good portion of them are. It is a good time to be a nerd.
The stories about the perks at Google and Facebook are now the stuff of urban legend. I was recently in the trendy SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco, and visited a typical 200-person tech firm that had the required bicycles, snack room, and catered lunches and dinners. So why do hiring managers insist on the sheepskin (that means the actual diploma, for those of you too young to remember the reference)? Tradition, perhaps?
I went shopping around a few typical college Web course catalogs, looking for the kinds of software engineering classes that would teach kids today how to do a Hadoop cluster or learning CSS/XML. I came up empty-handed. Granted, I didn’t spend hours on this research.
Take a look at this course listing from the University of Texas at Austin’s Computer Engineering Department. Disappointing, from a place that has an active software community. Or how about this list of classes offered at the University of Urbana-Champaign, where the Web browser was invented? You can find plenty of advanced computer research happening on campus, but teaching something practical to undergrads? Not in the catalogs that I could find.
Both Vatterott and ITT Technical Institute teach Java programming as part of their certificates, so there is some hope for those who have the time and money to afford these expensive programs. But not on every one of their campuses.
As the software market heats up (and you have noticed that it is heating up, right?), the idea of a degree becomes less and less necessary, especially if you can prove your coding chops and demo what you have actually built. As you can see from my brief exploration, sometimes a CS degree doesn’t mean that you can actually program, and many schools are woefully behind on teaching the sorts of tools and techniques that the bread and butter of modern Web apps.
Granted, teaching programming skills is a lot more than offering a course in Java. But you need both the theory of software design and the actual language instruction too. It would be like teaching French by only showing what art you can find in the Louvre and d’Orsay museums. In the meantime, we need a better match between courseware and software practice, and better understanding by hiring managers of what is important.
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