July 28, 2005
How To Reduce The Risk Of Blog Copyright Theft
If you're a small business that's using blog to build customer and cement customer relationship you need to incorporate measures to reduce the risk of your blog content being stolen
Some useful advice include:
1. Add a formal copyright line and Terms & Conditions
2. Slim down your RSS feeds
3. Embed an "invisible" copyright line in articles
4. Ask for a hotlink
5. Include preferred attribution lines
6. Tell Google in writing if someone steals your copyrighted materials
See the full article:
Marketing Sherpa
Posted by David at 9:28 AM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2005
Competition Hots Up On RSS Ads
One area where Google is not the percieved leader is in blogs. Although Google owns Blogger.com , which is very popular. Innovation in blog technology and blogging can rightly be claimed by a number of concerns ranging from micro businesses to large businesses. Google it seems has being quietly testing text, banner ads and syndicated content using RSS feed by incorporating them into their Adsence advertising platform and are about to introduce a beta version over the next few weeks - according to 'blog insiders'.
Making blogs pay has been a preoccupation for a number of players including Longhornblogs.com . They are one of the early pioneers experimenting with RSS and ads; their ads are in HTML format and include images and links. Another experimenter of RSS ads is Kanoodle and Moreover, who are jointly working on creating publishing tools that include ads into RSS feeds.
The daily evolution of blogs as exemplified by Google's introduction of text ads, banner ads and RSS syndication built into Adsence are good enough reasons why small businesses should embrace blogs.
Blogs or blogging offer small businesses the opportunity to publish articles that can reach thousands to millions of people
via the search engines and RSS, while continuing to drive traffic into the future for only the time investment of writing content.
Unlike a classic direct marketing campaign you don't incur same costs of acquisition associated with reaching a target audience with your message.
There's more ...blogs are serious business tools that no online business should be without. Blogs are a fantastic bridge tools that allow you to personalise your communication with your customers, prospects and potential partners.
For small businesses that are serious about blogging and RSS
blog for fun and profit is arguably the best resource to tap into.
See also previous article blog and small businesses
David
small Business Resource
Posted by David at 10:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 18, 2005
Small Business Marketing Blogs Can Act As Spy ware Carriers
The recent failed attempt by hackers to transfer £220 million from Japanese Bank in London highlights the security risks now being faced by large organizations including small businesses that use blog as a marketing and publishing tool.
Unknowingly to blog owners, hackers use their blogs to infect computers with spy ware. This is a security flaw in many self-blogs that affects millions of people who use the web.
Security experts said malicious programmers can use JavaScript and ActiveX to automatically deliver spy ware from a blog to people who visit the site with a vulnerable web browser.
If you own a small business blog that publishes articles you could unwittingly be using an infected tool as a delivery platform for spy ware.
Richard Stiennon, chief of technology at Webroot Software, a maker of anti-spyware technology, said: "It is one more link in the commerce chain of illicit adware."
Users of Internet Explorer are very vulnerable. In fact security experts say the problem only affects web surfers using Microsoft's Internet Explorer who fail to choose the highest IE browser security settings.
If you use Google's Blogger as your small business blog you are vulnerable as the problem has cropped up most visibly in this most widely blog publishing tool.
Another popular blog, Blogspot.com has been exposed to infection and visitors have complained that they were exposed to infected sites when they used the "Next Blog" link. The feature was designed to help people discover new journals and takes web surfers to a random Blogspot site.
Ben Edelman, a Harvard University researcher who has documented the vulnerability on his site, referring to Blogger, said: "They left the back door wide open."
Edelman said that one major culprit of malicious code was a service called iWebtunes.com, which lets people add music to the web sites in the form of a couple lines of JavaScript code. Bloggers using Blogspot might embed the iWebtunes code into their template and then pass on the spyware unwittingly to visitors to their site.
Faced with increasing cyber crime and cyber ware, small businesses that publish articles and news via small business marketing blog should take all the precaution they can to avoid being victims the this increasing menace.
That includes taking the advice of Webroot's Stiennon who advises people to switch to the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox web browser for reading blogs. Either do that, or change IE security settings to deactivate ActiveX or JavaScript in the web browser, he said.
Based on article published by www.silicon.com
Posted by David at 10:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 9, 2005
Bloggers Blog Way Into White House
An unassuming 23 year old outsider yesterday took one small step for a bolgger, one giant leap for the bloggosphere, as he became the first recognised Internet diarist to be welcomed into the White House.
Garrett Graff filed his first report from inside the White House after Scott McClellan, President Bush's spokeman, conducted his initial morning briefing. The occasion marked another breakthrough for bloggers, the writers of weblogs, who are increasingly making their mark as an influential arm of the news media.
Mr Graff received his pass as editor of FishbowIDC, a blog published by Mediabistro.com, a networking service for journalists, having spent nearly a week fruitlessly trying to gain access to the Brady briefing room, named after James Brady, Ronald Reagan's press secretary, who was crippled when John Hinckley tried to assassinate the President in 1981. But the White House press corps urged Mr McClellan tolet Mr Graff in and he received a prized day press pass. The decision to open the door to blogger comes after the recent brush with controversay over Jeff Gannon, a reporter for a republican webswite who used a false name and asked highly sympathetic questions of Me Bush. The reporter has not been see in the White House since his sideline in X rated websites was revealed.
Online commentators are growing in number and prominence. Bloggers revealed that the documents in an election smear story about President Bush's National Guard service were fake. Several CBS producers lost their jobs as a result.
Facts about bolgs:
. Weblogs (blog) are websites where users can post entries on any
subject
. The term was coined by Jorn Barger in 1997
. In 2002 US Senator Trent Lott resigned after bloggers accused him
of racism
. Politicians Howard Dean and Wesley Clark kept bolgs as campaigning
tools
. Several blogs have been published as books, such as those by the
Baghdad bolgger Salam Pax and the prostitute Belle de Jour.
White House or not learning how2bolg whether for fun, fame or profit is gathering monuntum.
The Times
Tuesday Mearch 8 2005
Posted by David at 8:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 4, 2005
If Sony Is Interested In Blog Publishing So Should Small Business Owners
You might have noticed an up swell of interest in blogging and RSS (Real Simple Syndication) as a tool for publishing content and communicating directly with visitors, prospects, customers and publishers of content. As a small business owner who is interested in providing unique content and communicating with your audience blogs is definitely the way to go.
Blogging is very new but while you’re reading this brief message, advertising and publishing giants like Google and Yahoo are gearing up to take advantage of the benefits offered by weblogs.
Yesterday, even Sony decided to enter the ‘blog trail’ by entering into agreement with Gawker Media to sponsor a new blog on software. You can read the Adrants article
Blog and RSS as a marketing tool can offer great benefits for small companies. An a small business owner who is using the Internet as a marketing medium, it’s a low cost medium for generating traffic to your web site, developing a unique identity and building long term relationships with subscribers and customers.
If you want to know more about blogging and RSS, and how to be on the ground floor of what will be the next Internet phenomenon, how2blog.com is ahead of the curve. You won’t find a better resource on how to blog for fun and profits.
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 9:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 1, 2005
How Change In “Can-Spam” Is About To Hit Spammers Where It Hurts
Spam emails are the ‘curse of the Internet’ of plague proportions and that’s not being overdramatic. Small business owners spend hours of unproductive time sifting and filtering hundreds and spam emails from their email boxes every day. If it’s not Viagra, it’s some other medication, Internet get rich scam or pornographic content.
By using anti-spam software some spam in being blocked but legitimate emails are being mistaken for spam resulting in potential loss of business and reputation.
But all this is about to change, at least in the USA. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is about to turn its attention to spammers.
If you’re a small company that sends spam emails the FTC, in turning its attention to spammers who currently get away with sending "junk email", the FTC will be broadening Its "Can-Spam" remit.
If caught, and this is the ‘real crux on the matter’ it’s bound to hit spammers where it hurts, in their bank account. To be effective The FTC could impose huge fines on offending companies.
This is welcoming news for small business owners, however important questions remain such as, policing by the FTC, what constitutes a legitimate email, how can you stop an irate Webmaster and disgruntled Webmaster in accusing you of sending him a spam email.
Also, what about spam emails sent by small businesses in USA to foreign web site owners? These are just some of the important issues that the FTC has to consider if is to effective in tackling spam under the "Can-Spam" Act.
In it’s most recent action the FTC, initiated it’s first suit against alleged violators of the adult content provision of "Can-Spam."
D Davis
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 11:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
