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| Google have been the dominant player in the search engines, but the way they "slap" their own customers has always been a mystery. If any other business treated customers this way they would Fail. Constant changes to the alogrithim, in the guise of stopping spammers taking over their beloved first pages. But does it work ? Directories, holding sites and one page wonders with 10,000 + back links are still there. Then they tried the hotpot, now +1 to compete with the Facebook like button. They are still the leader but for how long ? Facebook users are on the site for longer and interact with people much more. Google is becoming purely a search engine, even though Google are trying to introduce Products, they do lead the way on PPC, but again they shoot themselves in the foot with the quality score and cost's involved.Other PPC platforms are gaining ground and learning from Google mistakes. Facebook will and do introduce apps that are used and effective.Simplification is the name of the game and never more so the for Local business.They want a system they can use and attract more customers. Google do recognize this but just can't settle on a format for page one displays. Google maps and local are a step in the right direction, local business can benefit from this idea, but it is open to abuse, Google needs to react to their customer concerns, or they will falter in the wake of Facebook and even Twitter.It is essential that every local business is easy to find on the Internet, this needs to be a strategy using an Internet marketing service, spreading the message far and wide.This can be nationally or internationally or just in your local area, but it needs to be done correctly. | | |
| With Yahoo site explorerer being permanently retired it is vital that you find a new source for your backlink data , as much of Yahoo!’s data would, by the end of March 2011, no longer be available. Google, as you know, does not make much of it’s backlink data at all (only a very small percentage of your true links are reported by Google), and with the merging of the number 2 search giant’s Yahoo and Bing, you need to find another data provider Yahoo has recently changed to use Microsoft’s Bing search engine as their provider of search results. Many have attributed this as part of the cause of inaccuracy in the yahoo back links recently (ie. they are now looking at Bing’s backlink data). Others have suggested that as Yahoo Site Explorer will be decommissioned soon, that the data is not as up to date, is not being effectively maintained, and is decaying rapidly. You need to keep accurate back link records for your website.If your site needs a performance boost you need to know the starting point. With a cost effective internet marketing service.Be Warned: Yahoo Site Explorer will be gone soon | | |
|  Review Callaway Is a new website particularly looking at the products manufactured by one of the worlds leading golf equipment suppliers. Callaway Golf Company was founded by former Burlington Industries textile president, Ely R. Callaway, Jr in 1982. Callaway Golf Company is an American sporting goods company based in Carlsbad, California, who specialize in golf. They manufacture a full range of golf equipment, including woods, irons, wedges, putters and golf balls, and also license the Callaway brand name for clothes, footwear, rangefinders and accessories. For a full review of the different product ranges click here now Review Callaway | | |
|  Kendal Restaurants Golf Day. Friday evening started by choosing which of the Kendal restaurants we should visit for our first dinner, the night before our first round of golf at a nearby golf course. In this Cumbrian market town, which is classed as the gateway to the Lake district, you are spoiled for choice. Italian, Chinese, British, or fusion even get a takeaway to take back to the hotel. After a few drinks at a local pub we decided on Paulo Gianna's which has a great atmosphere and a menu choice that suited all of us. Food and wine was ordered and the conversation soon got around to the next day's golf competition. We had booked to play at several of the local courses, Heysham being the first and by all accounts the longest and toughest test. The following day we are going to do 36 holes, 18 at Kendal and 18 at Windermere followed by an early night ! Update ; We had a great day at Heysham, coffee and bacon buns to start then an assault on the course. Some of the par 4's are over 420yds so you had better get a good drive away. Needless to say i didn't, let's not mention the score or who won, but we won't be on the Ryder cup team next time, that's for sure. That night we went to the Castle Diary another of the Kendal Restaurants, Roman building remains, are part of this unusual dining experience, but the food is wonderful.Early to bed now to get ready for the 36 holes tomorrow! | | |
|  Grow Your Local Business In 2011 Facebook is now valued at $50 billion that's over twice the value of Google ($24 billion) when it went public in 2004. These are the two big players of 2011 and as a business owner you need to understand the figures and potential behind these enormous valuations. Facebook and Google are both making the connection of people together so much easier than it has ever been. People are spending money , you just need to connect them to your Local business in 2011. Here is a great article i found :-
Facebook began as a geek's hobby. Now it's more popular than Google Half of all those online have visited the social networking site. Soon it may become synonymous with the web itself
Jemima Kiss The Guardian,
Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook’s f 8 conference last year. He believes the future navigation of the web will be through social networks, not searches Photograph: Mike Kepka/San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis Mark Zuckerberg faced a make-or-break year in 2010. From its first incarnation in 2004, Facebook had expanded effortlessly to a point where nearly half of the global online audience had visited the site but it was beginning to face a backlash from tech geeks, who accused founder Mark Zuckerberg of going too far in declaring the age of privacy over.
Flash forward to the start of 2011 and the outlook could hardly be more different. Bolstered by Facebook hitting the 500 million user milestone in July, a $450m (£290m) backing from Goldman Sachs and immortalised on film in Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network, Zuckerberg seems more confident, skilled and omnipotent than ever. And Facebook appears to achieved the ultimate coup: threatening to unseat the mighty Google as the superpower of the web.
There are some things money can't buy and, for Google, they are market-leading social media propositions. Despite its position as a technology superpower and with an estimated $33bn in the bank, it has largely failed to deliver a convincing consumer proposition for social networking.
YouTube, which Google owns, has a vast network that reached 30 million monthly users in Britain alone last October, according to comScore, yet has little coherent, constructive community. Any enthusiasm for Google Buzz evaporated in a cloud of privacy controversy, while its Orkut site may be a Brazilian favourite but has failed to gain ground in Google's home market.
Google is very far from anything like a crisis but it has been slowly undermined by Facebook's audacious and rapid development, the realisation of Zuckerberg's plan to reconfigure the web through social navigation and Facebook's exploitation of its popularity to recruit some of Google's hottest talent.
Google has never underestimated Facebook. In 2007 it attempted a major investment in Facebook but was beaten by Microsoft, which took a 1.6% stake for $240m. Facebook's extraordinary, exponential growth – up to 633 million global users by October, according to comScore – is positioning it as the most powerful site on the web. Already secured as the busiest website in the world, Zuckerberg envisages a future where we will navigate the web through our social graph – our network of friends and contacts – with recommendations rather than searches determining what we buy, watch and discuss.
The statistics, as estimated by comScore, speak for themselves. By October 2010, Facebook had already become the UK's largest display advertising publisher, showing 24.4bn ad impressions, or five times as many as Microsoft, to about 30 million web users. The number of advertisers tripled in a year. Revenues are estimated at $2bn for 2010, which would mean Facebook has raised revenues faster than Yahoo and almost as fast as Google.
Facebook also had the third highest number of video viewers, behind YouTube and just behind the BBC, with 9.4 million unique users. And 47% of the global online population visited the site in 2009. Facebook's UK audience hit 31.6 million unique users for October.
"Facebook, along with Google, is now one of the titans of the internet universe," said Simon Carmichael, of merchant banking firm Torch Partners. "Look at the audience it has and how they monetise that; advertisers are already very keen and they are creating a whole ecosystem around Facebook."
Peter Thiel, an entrepreneur and hedge fund manager who was an early investor in Facebook, said in September that the company would not go public until 2012 at the earliest. Carmichael agrees. "Facebook doesn't need to IPO to raise capital as its stock is already very widely spread, and there's a very lively secondary market for Facebook stock in the US. But it would be good for the tech industry and an IPO at that level would make it easier for $1bn businesses to get out."
Investors cannot get enough of Facebook on these secondary markets, which allow Facebook shareholders – though not current staff – to cash in on their stock. Trading has surged since November when Accel, one of Facebook's largest investors, sold 15% of its stake for $517m, valuing the company at $35bn.
Under US law, firms with more than 500 different shareholders must go public but Facebook won an exemption in 2008 by stating that most shares were held by staff. Regulators are looking again at these markets because of the volume of trading. Facebook's stock is by far the most popular and trades hands at rates valuing it at more than $50bn.
With investors convinced the Facebook phenomenon is only just beginning, how will does the firm plan to it grow? Zuckerberg has said that Facebook is "almost guaranteed" to reach the one billion user mark – and is attacking on every front.
The list of Facebook products introduced in the past 12 months testifies to Facebook's ambitions to move beyond a simple network of social connections to become the default navigation tool for our online experience. From dominating photos and gaming, as well as expanding its email system, Facebook has now added features designed to add revenue potential to gaming and local commerce, including credits, deals, places, and a Q&A tool.
Juniper's principal analyst, Windsor Holden, Facebook's future domination depends on mobile. "Mobile usage is far more engaging because it taps that dead time, like waiting for a train. Previously it was sitting on a desktop – a primary activity – but now it is like snacking." says augmented reality, where images and information services are overlaid on a phone's camera, will explode in 2011. "The industry so far has catered for a niche community but there are 100m augmented reality-capable smartphones in use. That could be powerful for Facebook's advertising as it's a natural fit for advertisers."
Facebook faces challenges in reaching one billion users, not least because Europe and North America will soon reach Facebook saturation, and markets such as China and Russia are dominated by domestic rivals. But the developing world is a huge opportunity for Facebook and one it has already begun to address by working with at least 50 local operators to offer Facebook Zero, a pared-down version of the site that users can access for free via mobiles.
Already the web's biggest photo site, Facebook has disrupted sites such as Photobucket and Yahoo-owned Flickr. Facebook has provided a vast platform that allowed games studios Zynga and Playfish to flourish; Zynga's revenues alone are estimated at $600m for 2010.
Television is lined up next; Facebook is an important app being built into many internet-connected TVs from Samsung's Smart TV to Yahoo's Connected TV that will allow users to Facebook message friends about the shows they are watching together, finally giving TV the potential for targeted advertising.
The volume of information generated by Facebook globally is daunting. In any 20 minutes, Facebook typically sees 1m shared links, 2.7m photos uploaded and 10.2m comments. Facebook also records 7.7m "likes" every 20 minutes, generated not just by users on facebook.com but on more than 2m other sites across the web that have embedded Facebook's commenting tools.
More than 10,000 sites are adding Facebook's tools each day, and about a third of users access the site this way at least once a month. Facebook hopes this strategy will make the site ubiquitous by allowing users to take their Facebook identity with them throughout the web.
Until Facebook goes public, its priorities will be growth in users and revenues, which means more of these aggressive plans to expand. Those plans have just been boosted by a fresh investment round. With momentum like that behind Zuckerberg's plans to dominate the web, it might be easier to ask what isn't a target for 2011?
"In the next five years almost every major product vertical [specialist industry] is going to get rethought to be social," Zuckerberg said, revealing his vision to the Web 2.0 Summit in November. "You're either going to have an incumbent turn their business around, or some creative entrepreneurs with great engineers who are rethinking the product from scratch. Get on the bus.
You need to get your local business visible on the Internet and the way to do that easily and quickly is to use a Facebook Page and Google places. This should be your number one priority in the next few weeks so you can prosper in the rest of 2011. | | |
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