Corporate Blog

Small Business Resources - How to Write an Ad

Tue, 22 May 2012 20:54:00 GMT

How To Write An Ad

10 Steps to Writing Successful Ad Copy

Writing an ad? The tips below -and the important warning that follows - will help you to get the very best response.
Start by choosing a single benefit of your product or service that you wish to highlight above everything else. This is your "principle selling position" or PSP. To choose this, ask yourself what specific benefit makes your product or service different, better, or special. Is it the price?, the convenience? the reliability?

Write attention-grabbing headlines. This is very important. People are overloaded with information, so they skim read, particularly on the Internet. If your headline doesn't get their attention everything else is probably wasted because it won't be read. Your headline will often be based around your PSP.

Write a list of all the features of your product or service then translate each of these into a benefit for the customer. One way to do this is to look at each feature in turn then ask yourself "So what?" Imagine you're a customer; why should you care about this feature? Ask "What will it do for me?"

For example, don't just say that you product is fast (a feature) tell the customer that it will give them more free time (a benefit). Better still, paint a picture of them using their free time to go to the beach, read a book, or relax.

Write copy that emphasises the benefits in a way that makes an emotional connection. For example, let's say you're selling toothpaste. A feature might be that it contains fluoride. Sure, but that's boring. Rather, say it "Lessens Tooth Decay!" or even better: "Brush with Boffo and Avoid the Dentist's Drill!" See? You've turned a dull feature into a strong emotional benefit linked to people's fear of dental procedures. Isn't that more effective than "Contains fluoride"?

Start with your strongest selling points. The first few paragraphs are particularly important. Use them to create a desire for your product or service by briefly touching on the major benefits it will bring the customer. You don't have to go into too much detail up front as you can expand on these benefits later. Do try to get your big guns in early, though.

Testimonials sell. Good, believable testimonials from real people will help sales, particularly on the web where establishing credibility is a tough job. For even better credibility, ask your testimonial writers if you can include their contact details along with their testimonial.

Write with a natural style. Don't try to be pretentious or over friendly. Just write it the way you'd say it.

Decide who you're writing for and why. What tone are you trying to convey: light hearted?, serious? What level of jargon are you going to employ? Suit your language to your intended audience.

The final sales pitch, when it comes, must have three specific parts:
It must incorporate a good deal; e.g. "40% off!"
It must be urgent; e.g. "Only seven more days!"
It must be risk free; e.g. "Backed by a 90-day, no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee!"

End by telling the reader what to do; e.g. "Ring now" or "Click here to order now for immediate delivery!" Needless to say, ordering details must be clearly visible and simple to follow.
Looking at these tips, it may seem that good advertising involves manipulating the emotions of your customers. Yes, it does.

Selling is a blatant form of emotional manipulation that involves convincing your customer that they want to buy your product or service, and they want to do it now.

Is this unethical? Well, it can be. It depends where you draw the line. In point 9 I said that your sales message must include a sense of urgency. A common ploy on the web is to include a claim like "Offer closes this Saturday". If you go back to the site the following week, though, the offer is still available. If you were tricked by such a claim, would you order from that company again?

So, by all means, use the 10 tips above to write as persuasively as you can, but remember that if you attract sales by deceiving your customers you risk not only legal action but poor word of mouth, no repeat business, and more refund requests. So, be as persuasive as you can possibly be, but avoid the temptation to be "too" persuasive. :-)

About the author:
Tim North is the author of "BETTER WRITING SKILLS" - an easy-to-understand, jargon-free, downloadable book that can give you a competitive edge. You can DOWNLOAD A FREE CHAPTER that's full of useful hints and tips from http://www.betterwritingskills.com

Source : http://www.startupinternetmarketing.com/pagelinks/how2ad.html

James Butt

Pinterest Has a New Investor

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:14:00 GMT

Pinterest has garnered investment interest from one of the world's largest Internet service providers, in a move that could value the social photo-sharing service at $1.5 billion.

Rakuten, which runs the largest e-commerce site in Japan, announced Thursday that it is leading a $100 million round of investment in Pinterest. Participating in the round are existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital, along with an unspecified number of angel investors.

Rakuten's portion of the funding is in excess of $50 million, according to All Things D, which first reported the investment news (and at the time thought the round might be as big as $120 million). The new round now values Pinterest at $1.5 billion, ATD says.

Beyond the funding alone, Pinterest and Rakuten have entered into a strategic partnership to facilitate Pinterest's expansion in Japan and other markets.

"Our goal is to help people discover things they love, by connecting people through their shared interests. Bringing Rakuten on board gives us an amazing opportunity to move a step closer to this goal," Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, said in a statement.

Launched in March 2010, Pinterest had earlier raised $37 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer, and FirstMark, which gave it a valuation of $200 million. The site has experienced phenomenal growth in the past few months, doubling its number of daily unique visitors to 4 million since January, according to data released last month by social media marketer Tamba.

In the wake of Facebook's acquisition of Instagram, those numbers make Pinterest ripe for buyers, as my colleague Rafe Needleman points out. "There's really only one startup that emerges as most Instagram-like: Pinterest," Needleman writes. "All the others are battling for position as distant followers."

Founded in 1997, Rakuten had revenues of $4.7 billion in 2011.

Updated May 17 at 4:38 a.m. PT with the official announcement of the Rakuten-led investment round.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57435953-93/pinterest-pins-down-$100m-in-new-funding/?tag=txt;title

Danielle Girodat

Bing gets social

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:51:00 GMT

The big advantage of the Bing approach to socially enabled search is that the fundamental search experience appears little changed. Social is mostly in a sidebar. You still get your search results in the main column. Google Plus Your World, in contrast, puts social search results in the main column, but only when you ask. It's an extra step and has not been a critical success.

When you search in the new social Bing, the most obvious change is that new sidebar showing social results. But instead of showing text snippets from pages your friends have seen or liked, it highlights instead the people who you know (or follow) who might have knowledge about the topic you're interested in.

So if you're searching for "Audi," you'll get your usual search results (including ads) in the main search column. If any of your Facebook friends have "liked" a link that's in your search results, a very subtle, gray thumbs-up icon appears next to the link.

Off to the right, in the social zone, you'll see a few new clumps of info. Under a "Friends who might know" heading, you'll see a list of Facebook friends with Audi-related activity (photos tagged as Audi or likes related to Audi). You may, under that heading, get a "People who know" column listing people who have tweeted about the topic, who have your search query in their Twitter bio, or who have posted on the topic on another site.

What Bing is trying to do with this design is help you find people you might want to engage with (hello, Facebook partnership), rather than just blasting you with search results, even if those results are informed by your friends' activities, which is what Google does.

So part of the new Bing experience is a tool for building a query about a topic that goes specifically to people you select in your "Friends who might know" list. It's short work to create a question about a topic, select friends who know about it to receive the question on Facebook, and add some related links to the query from the main search results. I'm not sure people will use this feature, but those inclined to ask their Facebook friends questions to further research they're starting in a Bing query might find this feature useful and fun. If you're about to make a big purchase or go on vacation, this is useful. It would be nice if when people answered your query there would be some indication of that in your "Activity" list in the sidebar, though. There isn't. Unfortunately, in too many queries I tried, Bing came up empty on the social front or simply showed me links to photos that friends had taken. In only a few queries did it return deeper info or likes. Results depend on your Facebook social connections, but I have a good number of Facebook friends and expected more.

Google Plus Your World, on the same queries I tried, gave me more results. It listed tons of links my friends had flagged on almost every query I threw at it. There was, in fact, too much to sort through from Google and a lot of the results were not what I wanted. So Google doesn't get social search just right, either. Its failings are just different: Too much undifferentiated content, compared to what appears on Bing to be overly cautious result sets. Google doesn't make it as easy to connect with people over topics as Bing does, either.

I found the content comparison surprising considering how many social signals Facebook picks up from all the liking that people are doing across the Web. I expect that as this socially enabled version of Bing matures, Microsoft (and Facebook) will figure out a way to layer in more and better content. But I expected a more useful offering for a major update to social search from a partnership between tech giants Microsoft and Facebook.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57435531-93/bing-gets-social-but-its-too-quiet-in-here/?tag=txt;title

Danielle Girodat

Bing gets social

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:51:00 GMT

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57435531-93/bing-gets-social-but-its-too-quiet-in-here/?tag=txt;title

Danielle Girodat

Cybercrooks are targeting new soical media sites

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:24:00 GMT

Social networks have long been a target for cybercriminals, but now the bad guys are expanding their horizons.

Malware writers are aiming at such hot social networks as Tumblr and Pinterest to trap a new wave of victims, says a report out yesterday from GFI Software.

"Established sites like Facebook and Twitter have long been a breeding ground for new cyberattacks, but now we are seeing scammers taking an interest in the popularity of newer sites like Pinterest in order to catch victims off guard and trick them into clicking on something they shouldn't," Christopher Boyd, senior threat researcher at GFI Software, said in a statement.

Analyzing the malware landscape in April, the security firm found a host of schemes and scams directed at social network users.

In one campaign, Twitter was used as bait to take advantage of users on Pinterest. A Twitter account called "Pinterestdep" (which has since been suspended) claimed to offer Visa gift cards to people in exchange for sharing their opinions about Pinterest. But instead, intended victims were directed to a Web site that prompted them to fill out several rewards offers and convince their friends to do the same.

Misspelling the name Tumblr was the trigger for another scam. Users who accidently typed "tublr" would be redirected to a message claiming they had been chosen as a "daily winner," prompting them to fill out surveys and respond to offers to pick up their prize. A check of the URL www.tublr.com shows that this scam remains in full bloom.

The popularity of Twitter still makes it a juicy target for cybercriminals.

In one scareware campaign, Twitter users were sent "must-see" links to Web pages that installed phony antivirus software on their computers. The victims where then informed that their PCs were infected with a virus and that they would need to make a payment to clean up their systems. Additional links using the Blackhole exploit kit were sent to the same people directing them to a site with another scareware program known as "Windows Antivirus Patch."
"With countless studies being released which point to the regularity with which users are visiting their favorite social networking sites, it should come as no surprise that cybercriminals see these sites as prime targets for their attacks as they look to reach as many people as possible," Boyd added.

For users of social networks, the advice is the same as always. Make sure your security software is up to date and that your operating system and applications are fully patched. And trust your own instincts to avoid any links, Web pages, or online offers that essentially scream out "This is a scam."

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57430681-93/cybercrooks-bring-their-schemes-to-tumblr-and-pinterest/?tag=txt;title

Danielle Girodat

Email Marketing Stats for 2012

Wed, 09 May 2012 03:40:00 GMT

When it comes to effectively reaching a large audience, email is still one of the top choices for marketers. These days there are so many other social media options, but a well constructed email campaign still has the power to engage your audience and drive conversions. Let's take a look at some current stats which enforce the effectiveness of email marketing:

There were 3.146 billion email accounts worldwide at the end of 2011 (Radicati Group) and 85% of worldwide internet users access email (Ipsos).
Investment in email marketing is projected to grow from $1.3B in 2010 to $2B by 2014 (Forrester).
59% of B2B marketers say email is the most effective channel in generating revenue (BtoB Magazine).

So as you can see, email marketing is still big, and definitely worth it. However:

Young people are using it less and less. Email usage declined by 34% among U.S. 18-24-year-olds in 2011 (ComScore).
There are still trust issues with email. Just 50% of consumers worldwide trust email messages from companies they have signed up to receive (Nielsen).

What does this mean? First, it's more and more important to fully understand your audience. You're not sending a campaign to a list of email addresses, you're sending to people of varied ages with different interests and needs. Perhaps this means sending specific campaigns to target different age groups? Or different industries? However you do it, be specific and make sure you do your research.

Also, there's the point about trust. It's true that email is perhaps the worst source of spam, so this is a hurdle marketers must overcome by creating a quality campaign focused on meeting the needs of the audience, as opposed to bombarding and pushing products and offers. Think about the kind of email you'd actually read. What does that include? What would you look for? It's all about engaging.

View more at business2community.com

Choosing the Right Domain Name

Tue, 08 May 2012 03:31:00 GMT

When choosing a domain name there are a number of factors that can influence not just the search engine visibility of your site, but also the ease of use for potential views. Let's take a look at some of these factors:

Keywords

Now, we're not talking about keyword stuffing (bestcheapestwebdesignconsultingservicescalgary.com?), that is bad. First, search engines don't like that, and search engines are smart. Second, doesn't that look rather unprofessional? I think it does, not to mention it's ridiculously long.

No, you want to keep your domain simple, but using keywords relevant to your business is important as when a user is searching for a term, say "Lumber in Calgary", a domain like calgarylumber.ca may be a good choice. Those keywords will be picked up in the search and can factor in on the search ranking. Also, when you see a domain like calgarylumber.ca, you get a good idea what the business is about without even viewing the website, and that's a good thing.

Simplicity Rules

Now as I touched on in the previous point, you don't want a domain that is ridiculously long, thus difficult to remember. Think for a moment that a potential future viewer to your site is referred by a previous viewer. The previous viewer tells the potential future viewer your web address, and unless they copy it down in some form, it's up to them to remember the address.

"Hmm, now what was that address? cheapestbestwebdesignservicescalgary.com? bestwebdesignandcheapestservicescalgary.ca? Ahh nevermind, I'll just find a different site."

You want your domain to be memorable, and simplicity is key, so try and avoid things like long words, complicated words, symbols, etc.

Be Creative, Avoid the Trends

If you want to set yourself apart from your competition, why not start with your domain? If viewers are finding your business online, your domain name is one of, if not the first thing they will see, and can influence how a viewer perceives your business. So why not be creative? Maybe it's a clever play on words, or a rhyme (perhaps a legal firm doesn't want a domain that rhymes, but you get what I mean).

Trends come and go, and they reflect a period of time: remember acid washed jeans? What I'm saying is, domain names have trends too, and the last thing you want is for your domain to sound dated. We've all seen domains that sound like "best--------.com" or "top-------.com". In these cases, the owner likely found a domain they wanted, saw that it was taken, then slapped an adjective to the front. Sure these types of domains are easy to get, but again this is a trend that is on its way out, and you don't want your domain to be left behind with it.

Keep It Simple, Stupid! Bing Simplifies Its Design

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:26:00 GMT

It seems Bing is undergoing a simplistic makeover, one that looks very familiar.

As we all know, Google is known for is its bare bones simplicity; no fancy images, no pictures, just a simple white design with a direct focus on content. Over the years there have been changes, but the core simplistic philosophy has remained the same, and there's a reason: it works.

So now Bing is simplifying its look, as you can see below, and it looks quite similar to Google. Is this blatant copying, or do they realize the KISS design principle is the way to go? You be the judge.

Image from mashable.com

How we now view Facebook brand pages

Thu, 03 May 2012 00:47:00 GMT

With the implementation of the latest Facebook overhaul, the Timeline, social media strategies have been forced to change. This article on Mashable explains how our perception of brands on Facebook has changed:

Ads on Facebook Timeline are less visible than ads on Facebook Brand Pages. While 30%-40% of study participants looked at ads on brand Timeline pages, 80% looked at them on Brand Pages. In both cases, ads placed higher up on the page fared better than those below them.
Cover photos are the new Facebook Wall (at least as far as attention goes). On brand pages, Wall posts were the star attraction. Viewers on average looked at them first and for the longest amount of time.
On the brand Timelines, however, viewers always looked at the cover photo first. In all but one case, they spent a longer time looking at it than at Timeline content.
Everyone will notice your cover photo. It’s larger than anything else and at the top of the page for a reason, and 100% of viewers looked at it. On average, they saw it in 0.5 seconds or less. Meanwhile, only 65% to 92% of viewers noticed profile photos on Brand Pages.
Viewers see Timeline content last. In every case, viewers looked at either the left or right column of Timeline content last — after ads, navigation buttons and brand logos.
Information that was invisible is now a focal point. Facebook moved the number of Likes, events and apps to prime top-and-center territory. It now gets more attention than when it was listed on the right-hand side of the page.
In the case of Good Morning America, for instance, the show’s 585,000 Likes went from being completely ignored on its Brand Page to being the biggest attention-getter on its Timeline.
Cover photos with faces attract the most attention. Good Morning America and “The Muppets” have cover photos with faces, whereas the Dallas Cowboys and Pepsi do not. The cover photos with faces attracted more attention.

Along with this, a study was done to show how users are now scanning brand pages:

Source: Mashable.com

Young Lions Contest

Wed, 02 May 2012 16:39:00 GMT

It took long hours and a sleepless night or two to get there, but 10 of Canada’s brightest marketing minds under the age of 30 have won the right to compete in the Young Lions contest in Cannes this year.

The Young Lions competition is part of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which runs June 17 to 23.

The Globe and Mail, Cannes Lions’ Canadian affiliate, announced the contest winners Tuesday. To win, 184 finalists were assigned project briefs and given 24 or 48 hours to create a presentation (depending on the category).

Noah Feferman and Stefan D’Aversa, a copywriter and art director at OgilvyOne, respectively, will compete in the Print competition.

Elma Karabegovic, and art director at DraftFCB, will partner with BBDO Toronto art director Mike Donaghey in Film

Teehan+Lax will send two of its senior designers – Mustafa Al-Qinneh and Paul Reiss – into the Cyber competition.

Valerie Whiffen, media planner, and Chris Walton, senior broadcast negotiator, both from Media Experts will enter the Media fray.

In the relatively new Young Marketers competition – which, predictably, brings younger staffers from client organizations to the French Mediterranean –Campbell Company of Canada is sending two of its brightest: brand managers Brad Canario and Aaron Nemoy.

“Canada’s advertising and marketing industries are brimming with fresh, innovative talent, which is evident in the increase in entries we’ve seen since The Globe began hosting the Young Lions competition in 2007,” said Andrew Saunders, the Globe‘s vice-president of advertising sales, in a statement. “At that time, we had 63 teams registered to compete – while this year we had 184. Sponsoring these competitions allow us to champion and support Canada’s rising prodigies and be part of their journey to compete and gain the attention they deserve on the international stage.”

Source: http://www.marketingmag.ca/news/awards/canadian-young-lion-young-marketer-winners-announced-51674

Danielle Girodat

Everyone Loves Pinterest

Tue, 01 May 2012 15:38:00 GMT

Interest in Pinterest is skyrocketing.

Launched a little more than two years ago, the social photo-sharing service has doubled its number of daily unique visitors to 4 million since January, according to new data from social media marketer Tamba. The site's core users are women, age 25 to 54, but the site is attracting the interest of men, who now make up 28 percent of new members compared with 20 percent in January.

More money is also being associated with the site, according to Tamba. The percentage of social media-driven revenue that comes from Pinterest has grown from 1 percent in the second quarter of 2011 to 17 percent in the second quarter of 2012. In that same time, Facebook has declined from 89 percent to 82 percent, and Twitter has plummeted to 1 percent from 10 percent.

In the wake of Facebook's acquisition of Instagram, those numbers make Pinterest ripe for buyers, as my colleague Rafe Needleman points out. "There's really only one startup that emerges as most Instagram-like: Pinterest," Needleman writes. "All the others are battling for position as distant followers."

Launched in March 2010, Pinterest has raised $27 million to peg it at a $200 million valuation -- $50 million shy of what Instagram raised to loft it to its pre-acquisition value of $500 million.

See Tamba's infographic below for more information about Pinterest users.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57423858-93/pinterest-sees-user-base-double-in-three-months/?tag=mncol;txt

Danielle Girodat

Interactive advertisements are a blast.

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:35:00 GMT

This is one of the best interactive video advertisement that I have seen in a long time. However, after a while you forget what they are advertising.

Check out the video. Warning-PG-13 There are a few swears in the being of the video.

The years that I found the funnest are 1985, 1989, and 2000

Danielle Girodat

Managing Your Business Online

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:04:00 GMT

These days if your business isn't online, you're more than likely missing out on huge growth and opportunities. But if you're not highly experienced with the web, where do you start? The web is full of many products that allow you to manage your site, build an online store, send out e-marketing campaigns, and so on. But again, with so many products and choices, where does one start, and how do you choose? This is why we offer our Turnkey platform; an all-in-one system which includes everything you need to manage and grow your business online.

Content Management

Quick Site Updates with SiteWalk.

Update your site quickly and easily. View your website just like your customer would - and actively edit the content as you go. Just point, click and edit your pages, with full access to the HTML code.

Keep It Consistent.

With site wide templates, you keep the professional design you pay for, on every page you create or edit. Think of it as a photo frame wrapping around the content you create, keeping the professional look and feel on every page.

Make it Social.

Don’t let your business be left behind. Create and control an unlimited number of blogs, forums, and RSS feeds. Keep your customers up to date with your business, and keep your business up to date with their ideas and comments.

Control Who Sees What.

Make any part of your site a Secure Zone, assigning customers unique usernames and passwords. Keep private information secure or sell access to a Secure Zone to customers, on a subscription basis.

Stay Organized.

Use Modules to manage announcements, bookings, photo galleries and FAQs, or try the Web App Wizard to create whatever you like. The only limit is your imagination!

eCommerce

Sell Anything.

You can create an unlimited number of products, then organise them in catalogues. You can even sell downloadable eProducts.

More Targeted Marketing.

Every customer who interacts with your site has their details automatically captured into your integrated CRM system. Keep a history of customer orders and actions, run loyalty programs based on segmented customer lists, or link targeted Email Marketing to these specific segments.

Easy Shipping Integration.

Out of the box shipping integration with FedEx, USPS, DHL and Australia Post allows you to cater to a global market. Offer your customers a range of payment options, with support for a growing list of payment gateways.

Search Engine Friendly.

Search engine friendly URLs mean that your business and online store can be found with ease. Search Engine Optimization will be a breeze, with all URLs containing the product or catalogue name and automatically generated Google Sitemaps XML files.

Measure your success.

Powerful analytics and reporting tools allow you to measure the popularity of products, shopping cart abandonment rates and much more, so you know exactly how your Online Store is performing and why.

Customer Relationship Management

Get To Know Your Customers.

With integrated customer relationship management built-in, every interaction your customers have with your business is logged, building their unique profile and history. You can also import any existing customer databases, using Excel spreadsheets.

Watch Your Customers, Live.

Your online business has a live feed of customer actions, on your dashboard. Whenever customers open a newsletter, submit a web form, purchase a product and so forth, you can see their action appear in real time on your live feed.

Create Automated Workflows.

You can automate SMS and email notifications to allocated users of the system, notifying them of important events. Trigger these workflows business-wide, to ensure your online business is always on its feet.

Easily Manage Customer Details.

You can edit and sort customer details, all from one simple to use, central interface. Monitor and control cases, orders, access privileges and subscriptions with ease.

Email Marketing

Targeted, Effective Marketing.

Build targeted customer lists based on information gathered from any part of your online business. This includes past order information, web form submissions, forum membership, blog comments and much more.

Reach Everybody.

Send up to 10,000 emails per month as part of an unlimited number of personalized email marketing campaigns. This means that you can reach out to more customers, for less.

Automate Your Campaigns.

Set up an automated campaign, delivering a highly-personalized and professional looking email to any potential or existing customer. You can automate a string of newsletters to be sent out at intervals, or even link the delivery to customer specific dates such as birthdays or anniversaries.

Choose From a Range of Professional Templates.

We provide you with a range of industry and occasion specific templates for your email campaigns, each fully customizable to suit your needs and with full access to the HTML code. So it will only take a few clicks to send a beautiful email newsletter.

Reporting & Analytics

Keep Your Finger on The Pulse.

Our system gives the key metrics, statistics and analytics to understand every facet of your online business. The easy-to-use dashboard allows you to make quick, smart decisions based on solid information.

Don't Waste Time With Fiddly Bits.

You don't need to waste time or money on fiddly codes or add-on modules for your site. Our integrated reporting system gives you fully functional analytics capabilities, straight out of the box.

An Executive Overview.

Take a seat in the big chair. Get a complete overview of your business's performance with a range of charts and reports that you can pull up on demand, showing you who is visiting your site and what they're doing.

Measure, Evaluate, Control.

When it comes to the big decisions, you need to be informed. Our system allows you to make these decisions with confidence, based on solid analytics and reporting.

Convinced? Contact us now and get started with Turnkey today!

Internet Hall of Fame

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:12:00 GMT

The Internet Hall of Fame officially kicked off today, inducting big tech names like Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, Mitchell Baker, and Brewster Kahle. This was the inaugural award ceremony sponsored by the Internet Society to celebrate more than 30 pioneers, innovators, and global connectors of the Web.

"This historic assembly of Internet visionaries, innovators, and leaders represents an extraordinary breadth of vision and work," Internet Society president and CEO Lynn St. Armour said in a statement. "While the inductees have extremely diverse backgrounds and represent many different countries, each individual has an incredible passion for their work."

The inductees come from nine different countries and include 11 Ph.D.s, 11 published authors, one Academy Award winner, and one Nobel Prize Winner. Broken into three different categories, the Internet Society recognized individuals for being instrumental in the early design and development of the Internet, those who made outstanding technological, commercial, or policy advances to expand the Web, and people who made contributions to the global growth of the Internet.

"We all benefit from their outstanding contributions to a global Internet, making it one of the greatest catalysts of economic and societal development of all time," St. Armour said.
The Internet Hall of Fame award gala was hosted in Geneva, Switzerland. Besides the expected honorees, like Linus Torvalds and Phil Zimmerman, there were also a few surprises among the group, such as Craig Newark, creator of the online classifieds Craigslist, and former vice president Al Gore, who the Internet Society said was "a key proponent of sponsoring legislation that funded the expansion of and greater public access to the Internet."

To see all of the inductees and their bios go to the Internet Hall of Fame's Web site.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57419560-93/internet-hall-of-fame-inducts-first-members/?tag=txt;title

Danielle Girodat

Spring Cleaning at Google.

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:23:00 GMT

When Larry Page stepped up to the CEO gig at Google last year, one of his pledges was to trim some of the fat at the company.

Continuing along that path and in the spirit of "spring cleaning," Google has announced a laundry list of products and services it is cutting soon.

A full list with details is available on the official Google blog, but here's a snapshot of some of the changes that might affect you the most:

No more support for Google Sync for BlackBerry, starting June 1.
The mobile Web app for Google Talk is being shut down.
Starting today, the Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Mac and Picasa Web Albums Plugin for iPhoto will no longer be available to download.
No more updates for Picasa for Linux.
The Google Flu Vaccine Finder has been retired. Anyone interested in this is being redirected to the HealthMap Flu Vaccine Finder.

Yes, some of these items might be things you'll miss. But Matthias Schwab, director of Cloud Services at Google, explained in a blog post that "making changes to products or services is hard, but we do need to maintain our focus if we are to do important things that matter in the world."

A goal here, Schwab continued, is to improve the overall user experience for Google users. Thus, less really could be more in this case if Google can dedicate more resources to bigger projects, like Google+ and Google Play (and maybe even Google Drive), and make them better over the course of the next year.

(Sourced: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57418164-93/spring-cleaning-at-google-means-dumping-these-projects/?tag=txt;title)

Danielle Girodat