Ads and Affiliates: Tracking Print Ad Responses
From: www.wilsonweb.com

"Recommends short subdirectories in print ads to help track response. Rather than redirecting to the home page, suggests developing specific landing pages for each ad or ad group. This will be much more effective in closing the sale. Date: Jan 26, 2005, 14:46 PST"

Local Marketing: How to Promote Your Local Business on the Internet
From: www.wilsonweb.com

"Announces the publication of a 43-page book that focuses on Internet marketing for a local business. Offers specific techniques for search engine optimization, yellow pages ads, local portal sites, PPC ads for local searches on Google and Yahoo!, geotargeting, and e-mail marketing to local customers. Date: Jan 25, 2005, 08:10 PST"

Site Promotion: How Does Google Use Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)?
From: www.wilsonweb.com

"Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) helps Google and others maintain relevancy by distinguishing in search results between polynyms, words with multiple meanings, and providing relevant results in cases of synonyms. Date: Jan 19, 2005, 13:45 PST"

E-Mail Marketing: Multi-part MIME E-Mail Is Obsolete
From: www.wilsonweb.com

"Multi-part MIME -- a protocol that sends both text and HTML formats in the same e-mail -- is now obsolete, since nearly all recipient e-mail programs can read HTML. These days, ask for the subscriber's preferred format and send that. Date: Jan 19, 2005, 07:25 PST"

E-Mail Marketing: Exactly What Is Spam?
From: www.wilsonweb.com

"Spam is usually defined as bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail. Unsolicited commercial e-mails (UCE) are prohibited by law in Australia and Europe. In the US, however, UCE is allowable if it is not deceptive and the recipient can opt out. Discussess opt-in, opt-out, and double-opt-in terminology. Date: Jan 12, 2005, 14:31 PST"


Open-source Solaris No-Lose For Sun?
From: www.webpronews.com

"With the open-source community being embraced by the tech giants like never before, there have been questions about how these actions will benefit the companies that opened their patents up."

Yahoo Provides Local Search Via Cell Phones
From: www.webpronews.com

"Matt Hicks of eWeek looks at the different cell phone search options and Yahoo's expansion with local search features."

ColdFusion BlackStone - Beta Is The New Black
From: www.webpronews.com

"The Macromedia Blackstone project is currently in beta testing. For those of you that don't know, Blackstone is the latest version of ColdFusion MX."

Lithuania Joins World of Corporate Blogging
From: www.webpronews.com

"Welcome Lithuania to the world of corporate blogging. I enjoy to follow the spread of this tool, and it's always nice to be able to add a new country ..."

Panel discussion: Blogging and journalism
From: www.webpronews.com

"Highlight points from the panel - pictured, left to right: Dan Forbush, Tom Foremski, Jeremy Wright, Heath Row - moderated by Dan Forbush."


Stealing, the Old-Fashioned Way
From: www.wired.com

"Despite the hoopla, most identity theft occurs offline. Also: Amazon.com uses video and GPS to create virtual tours of city businesses.... Rumors circulate about an SBC bid to buy AT & #038;T.... Software designed to scan Arabic documents could preserve culture and aid intelligence-gathering.... and more."

Vying for Slices of Wireless Pie
From: www.wired.com

"Bids in the government's airwaves auction hit $974 million as large carriers wheel and deal to win coveted licenses covering lucrative markets."

Stealing Canadian Berries?
From: www.wired.com

"Inventors of the BlackBerry say a U.S. court's ruling may undermine innovation by Canadian companies. Also: Microsoft engages in anti-piracy plan.... Borders crossings might benefit from RFID technology.... and more."

The Magic of Googlevision
From: www.wired.com

"Google leads the charge toward indexing information outside the web as it turns to TV. Also: Video-game maker Take-Two buys a chunk of Sega.... Will Google build a custom version of Firefox?... and more."

Microsoft Bows to Europeans
From: www.wired.com

"Obeying the courts, the company will ship Windows without Media Player in Europe. Also: Monsanto buys another seed maker.... Robot soldiers get ready to roll in Iraq.... and more."


My January 2005 Google Rant
From: webword.com

" John Dvorak is writing about the Google Browser. Yawn. I wrote about a Google Browser back in 2001. (Kottke gave me credit. Thanks Jason!) In fact, in my Google 2.0 article I wrote about a Google client. In 2001 I was talking about Google searching for ways to create a new platform.

I think Google is going to render operating systems irrelvant. Consider the Google Browser as a first step in the direction of the Google Client, where the client does much more than allow for web activity. Once the Google Client takes over, you'll see the Google Platform, where Google actually becomes a platform for development and activity. You can already see a lot of this in Google Labs. Look at their APIs. Look at what content they are going after.

Google isn't about search. Google is about getting between you and all information in the world, including your own information such as medical information, cell phone conversations, geographic location, food consumption history, and much more. Google will build the Ghost. Trust me. It is coming. Secretly, silently. And yes, also in plain sight. You have to love it.

(Who wants me write more about the Ghost? It is an extremely powerful idea. It is about the future of computing and usability.)"

Why you're gonna be hearing the word "tag" a lot
From: webword.com

" Powazek -- "But other people have already talked about all that, but what I find truly exciting about tags is that they're all about browsing. And not the directory/library/annoyingly hidden kind of browsing that led to the death of the Yahoo Directory and the emergence of the single Google box - the fun kind of browsing, like shoe shopping on Haight Street."

If you don't "get" tags, Derek offers an outstanding introduction. Tags look like this and this when you add them all together (i.e., socially available bookmarks, tags, or labels). To really understand tags, you're going to have to give Technorati, Flickr, or Del.icio.us a try. You can also get a taste of tags with gmail, but the flavor is different because the tags aren't socially available to others.

By the way, here is a really, really quick introduction to tags: Tags are a bottoms up way of adding information to other information. Tags are metadata.

In any event, read Powazek's excellent posting on tags..."

Investing in Usability: Testing versus Training
From: webword.com

" Boxes and Arrows -- "Assume that you are in charge of a development project and you have about $10,000 to spend on usability. What would you do? What is the best way to use the money? What will make the project a success? What is the right thing to do for the organization? What will be best for customers?"

This is an article I wrote in light of my personal experience and some discussions with usability specialists, developers, and project managers. I cover a lot of ground and I strongly encourage you to read the article if you are thinking about how to allocate your usability budget. The bottom line is that usability training can be a much better investment than usability testing. I even provide you with specific advice on how to choose between testing and training. Enjoy!

Read the article..."

Customer service nightmares (C|Net)
From: webword.com

" Hold Times from Hell (Monday)

The Case of the Techie Who Spoke No English (Tuesday)

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are coming soon."

Users confuse search results and ads
From: webword.com

" MSNBC -- "Only 1 in 6 users of Internet search engines can tell the difference between unbiased search results and paid advertisements, a new survey finds."

Are you surprised by this?

Read the article...

(Thanks for the submission Daniel Szuc)."