Pro IT Zone

For all of you who asked me and wanted to see the Lenovo’s TV Commercials that where shown during the Olympic games here they are… enjoy them!

The search giant, Google, is beginning to compete with Alexa, Compete and other services that base their existence in the delivery of statistics popularity of Internet sites.

However, it has always questioned the accuracy of the information Alexa and Compete, because their statistical calculations are based on information from third parties.

This time, Google joins the competition for describing and systematize information websites with their product Google Trends, which has added the ability to search among the statistics themselves.

Google Trends also becomes a provider absolutely reliable statistics, but it represents a new alternative to which users can rely in order to obtain benchmarks.

Google Trends base their results in a combination of source material, which includes sites and search traffic, as well as anonymous figures analysis from Google and other third party information.

The heavy metal rock band was the most aggressive litigant against the elimination of P2P networks. Now they want to ban the news of their new record coming out of blogs.

Metallica wants to silence the publications of bloggers that are making advances news on the forthcoming album of heavy metal rock band.

Despite the state of traditional music business because most experts point out that their future depends on the network, these musicians were still choking the Internet.

Metallica harshly attacked Napster, the pioneer in implementing exchange files between users on the web. Its leader, drummer Lars Ulrich supported all initiatives against this legal P2P software to remove it from circulation.

The cybernauts turned Metallica into the preferred target of their criticism. Many became bloggers and continue this policy on the Internet. Others just want more fair to publicize “news”.

Something to which also opposes the quartet. The group recently invited several music critics to listen first in their next job. There were asked to sign a document pledging not to reveal anything about this work, so some of them authors of blogs, published their views on the web.

Shortly thereafter, blogs such as The Quietus received a notification from representatives of the band demanding the elimination of criticism. Other media such as Kerrang, Metal Hammer and Rock Soud were recipients of similar requests.

Apparently, the critics what they heard was an unfinished version of the album, as well as be able to see some videos from the recording studio songs.

By Jon Rognerud

Blogs are a great way to get started authoring content and sharing your knowledge and insights with other people. Plus, mix work and play - and you can get rich doing this.

You don’t have to be an MBA-accredited author by any means. However, there are some rules to play by, and I’ll break those out below. We will talk about the top blogs, practicalities around blogs and creative ways to get started, including how you could possibly ruin your good-standing ranking and having to change your Search Engine Optimization strategy.

Blogs - Structure and Layout

I work in the field of Search Engine Optimization. It has a wide range of options, from the technical to the more strategic. Tons of discussions are found on off-page and on-page factors, latent semantic analysis, content scope, quality, HTML/CSS development, site navigational structure, spamdexing, 301 redirects, plagiarism, link strategies, directories, blogs, search engine news, email marketing tips & online (internet) marketing. Most all of the top 10 SEO firms out there agree that blogs are a “must” for driving traffic and to get established in the Internet community.

There is a right way, and a wrong way. We’ll discuss these below.

Be warned - too many folks out there are thinking about “how to outbeat the search engines” and use the latest-and-greatest (blogs) to elevate their rankings, essentially via content and blog sp@m. Blogs are a powerful way to get seen by the search bots. Blogger (Google’s own) is an important key to the puzzle, but there are many.

The Un-Official Top 7 Blogging Best Practices For SEO

1. Start here, begin a quick review of the world’s top blogs:

http://www.technorati.com/pop/blogs- updated daily

http://www.problogger.net - he makes #16,000/month

http://microsaw.stikipad.com - web 2.0 blogs

2. Get an account - it’s free. Log in - and - don’t start! What? No, you must first continue by scanning the list above and get a sense for what people are writing about. This could be more generic at first, but start looking to yourself. What do you know? What do people come to you for? Anything that you specialize in? (Hint: don’t think “how can I sell this” - but “how can I share this?”) You’ll also learn how to use trackback functions to allow other people to be notified. Permalinks are great for SEO and should be used where appropriate. So, now you learned something big: be yourself!

3. Think about an interesting headline. You don’t need to be a copywriter, but you should think about your headline and the topic at hand. More importantly, is it something that you are passionate about, or can contribute something to? It’s ok to spend some time here; writer’s block can come up. Think about other sites, can you re-write their UVP (unique value proposition)? How would you write yours (thinking theme here). What I’ve found to work is simply sit back and start talking as if you were discussing a (hot) topic with a friend, and then break it out into sub-groups from there.

4. Writing tips: casual, friendly and interesting (meaning you have something to write and you don’t copy others) works well in blogs. Make sure you stay on topic and that you are truthful. Would you lie to your mother? Of course not - then think about this when you are writing online (and she will not come after you). Yahoo’s blogging policy is a good one: “Be respectful of your colleagues, get your facts straight, provide context to your argument, and engage in private feedback.” Also, make sure to include images (flickr) and video (youtube, google video) where you can. Make the images rich and colorful; don’t worry about sizing too much.

5. Committment, persistence and discipline. Sound like an extract from Jim Rohn or Anthony Robbins? Well, they probably are - but it applies to most of the things you do in life. So be it with blogging. Carve out 1/2-1 hour every day to nurture your blog business. Think of it as your morning ritual - right after you have attended to your family and other duties. Plus, often you are not going to be in writing mode - but rather, maintenance mode - reviewing and responding to other blogger’s input.

6. Search engines start picking up your blog, and traffíc increases. Be prepared and if it gets out of hand, be able to manage that too. I’m not simply talking about traffíc, but as others join and comment, you may need to defend your stance, including admitting mistakes if / when you make them. Folks appreciate other folks who are big enough to admit mistakes if it gets there. For example, you may have folks who don’t like you - even if you’re Bill Gates. This guy created a Corporate Weblog Manifesto that I found interesting.

7. Run and host your own blog service. More expensive, but this could have a large impact on your ability to control not only the content, but custom HTML layouts, code and information architecture that are important to search engines. You can offer this as a service to others in your niche market. BusinessLogs.com is a great resource to use for starting this process, and more hands-on development companies like LevelTenDesign.com can be an option for you. Keep in mind that the market has developed niche-companies, from real-estate to healthcare, and you should research those specifically.

Content is important for Search Engine Optimization - be on top of it, keep a schedule.

Voila - that’s it, there you have it. Watch how the search engines will start picking up your content. You can run tools to see how you are ranking, how often you are showing up in the search engines. We like UrlTrends.com as a simple beginner starting point. However, it’s not 100% accurate, other SEO tools can provide more detail.

Keep your content fresh, updates daily is preferred - and definitely once a week and your search engine marketing (which includes search engine optimization) will become more visible than it was just last week. Then, use Pingomatic.com to alert search engines that you have made updates. It’s a frëe service, and will help your visibility.

By Reba Collins

Have you seen them yet? The little orange graphics that say XML or RSS? Have you ever wondered what the heck they are? Yeah, me too. And, being as curious as a cat, I had to find out!

It wasn’t hard to get most of the info I needed. All I did was search for RSS at Google and a ton of resources came up. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Hmmm…really simple? Yeah, it really is pretty simple and it makes keeping up with news, sports, entertainment and business, well…really simple.

Basically, what happens is, say you read the Wall Street Journal, CNN and ESPN everyday. You also read a couple of business newsletters weekly or when they get delivered to your email inbox and you read your niece’s blog (short for weblog [web-log]) that gets updated ‘whenever’. Okay, so you go to each of the websites each day and do your thing, right? Well, if those sites offer an RSS Feed (which they do - look for the little orange RSS or XML graphic) then you can have their content or articles sent directly to your computer. No more going through multiple websites, it’s all delivered to you in an RSS Reader right on your computer. And oh, there are also web based readers as well, you just choose the one you prefer.

Now, what’s so great about that? Well, let’s take a one of my websites, http://www.GiftBasketWholesaleSupply.com, as an example. Let’s say you set up all your news sites, newsletters and blogs so you can read them in your RSS Reader and then you find out that Gift Basket Wholesale Supply has a blog that’s updated whenever new items are posted to the site. AND…that blog has an RSS Feed…voila!, you add Gift Basket Wholesale Supply’s RSS Feed to your RSS Reader and you don’t have to worry about checking the site for new merchandise ever again. Now, you’re notified AUTOMATICALLY by way of a posting to their blog that is delivered to your RSS Reader. Isn’t that wonderful? How many of your suppliers offer this service? Well, if I were you, I’d find out because your life could get a whole lot easier! And what’s so great about an RSS Feed is you don’t have to deal with any spam, you only get the content you ASK for! Cool, huh?

Okay, so now what are you supposed to do? You want to start reading your news and business reports in an RSS reader but you don’t know what to do or how to get started. Well, I did the research…I found THE BEST resource for you to use to get started. It’s CNET, a wonderful techie site that takes techie info and breaks it down for the rest of us. There’s a page that explains RSS, and there’s a great video as well. You’ll also find links and reviews to all the different readers (be careful, some are free, some are not). You’ve gotta go there and check it out, here are direct links to both the pages mentioned.

How To Read RSS Feeds:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10088_7-5143460.html?tag=nav

RSS: Feel The Need For Feeds? Video (you’ll have to wait a second while the video downloads): http://www.cnet.com/av/video/flash/rss_tutorial.html?tag=video

And lastly, I want to tell you what I use to read my RSS Feeds.

First, the desktop RSS Reader I use is called FeedReader. It’s very similar to an email program and even makes the same tah-dah sound that Outlook Express makes for a new email when a feed is updated. The best thing is…it’s free, all you have to do is download and install it. Here’s the link:

http://www.feedreader.com

Second, I also like to use MyYahoo. To use MyYahoo, you just have to sign up for an account at Yahoo.com, it’s free. Most people already have one anyway. If you use Yahoo Mail or participate in Yahoo Groups, you already have an account. Just go to Yahoo.com, be sure you’re signed in and click the MyYahoo button at the very top of the page.

MyYahoo will let you customize your page and pulls only the information you want to read. To add an RSS Feed, click on the Add Content link, when you get to the next page click on the ‘Add RSS by URL’ link that’s right next to the ‘Find’ button. On the resulting page you can enter the RSS Feed URL. (Don’t worry, the video mentioned above will tell you how to get the feed URL, remember, there’s a link above to CNET’s video). It’s that simple!

Lastly, there is one other RSS Reader that I’ve heard great things about, it’s called FeedDemon. CNet has it as one of its top rated readers and I’ve talked with a few friends that say they couldn’t live without it. I guess, it’s worth looking at, huh? Here’s the link:

http://www.feeddemon.com/

So, I hope now you’re as curious as I was about RSS! Believe me, it’s the way you’ll be handling all the internet content you read on a regular basis, so go get started now and get a jump on your friends!