On Monday August 15, 2011, Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. It is a rich and impressive deal, and it has far-reaching implications for the greater technology industry. There is no secret here that Google made this purchase for the sole purpose of access to Motorola’s patent portfolio, a diverse collection with more than 17,000 prized items.

Patent Hoarding

Some refer to Google’s actions, as well as similar recent events, as patent hoarding. Yet hoarding often has a negative connotation and probably shouldn’t in this case. After all, the Motorola Mobility portfolio is not simply a fertile investment for Google; it is insurance-a defense strategy, if you will-against future business and legal threats that will come from all over the industry, including from its biggest players, both Apple and Microsoft.

There is real economic value to holding redundant patents, such as those acquired in the Motorola Mobility deal. There are revenues to protect, and while we generally think of patents in terms of establishing new ground, companies use them to maintain what they currently have. Many question Google’s motives: Why does Google want Motorola so badly? The answer is that it helps them to preserve their uniqueness in the market, at least for now.

Some claim that that the patent system is broken, but this is probably just an overreaction. The truth is that the patent system is just currently indicative of an industry that is in a great period of growth. Change, however, is on the horizon. Innovation is slowing and the patent approval rates are declining, so the patent wall will eventually deteriorate, new ideas will rise to the top and the cycle will renew itself, as it always does.

The Google Mobile Strategy

In the meantime, we consider Google: What comes next for them? Above, we describe them as defensive-minded perhaps even idle but that is, of course, not fully accurate. There is more to this than just protecting the members of the Open Handset Alliance. In fact, many Android partners are concerned considerably because there is the risk that Motorola could rout the competition because of first access to developer builds and similar valuable information.

However, Google has had great success with Android primarily because they’ve managed a fair system with so many different partners. It is not likely that they fix what’s not broken, right now. Sure, there may be short-term profit in it, but the long-term damages could, and probably would, be substantial. Google CEO Larry Page said as much to partners when he promised to maintain a level playing field even after folding Motorola Mobility into Googleplex.

In the past, Google has flirted with the hardware business: the Nexus One manufactured by HTC and the Nexus S made by Samsung. This move, however, is a decisive step for Google. They are no longer dipping their toe in the water; they’ve dived right in. So going forward, the big change is that we will see a much stronger, more diverse lineup directly from Google on the market. How the current Motorola lineup fits into all of this remains unclear.

Will this change Android OS Strategy

The other burning question is what does the acquisition of Motorola mean for the future of the Android operating system? One thing we know is that Google has long mused that the lack of integration between software and hardware is one of the great hindrances they face. Apple has clearly thrived because of their tight hardware-software integration. So we will see Google attempt to overcome this competitive advantage with its own integration.

Due to this new focus, there is the possibility that we witness a slowdown in Android OS innovation. Google would seemingly be far more interested in reinvigorating existing features with the tighter integration (in order to better battle Apple) than they would be developing new features. Google, however, has promised differently, and they assure partners that this acquisition will allow them to deliver a “supercharged” version of the Android OS.

One way that Google can deliver this supercharged OS with little delay is if most of the developments are software developments. In other words, if Google achieves greater integration by updating Android to take better advantage of current hardware aspects that are essentially the same across the board, then perhaps they can deliver a supercharged and integrated Android OS fast. That, however, seems, perhaps unrealistically, optimistic.

Mobile Market Shake-up

The other provocative question concerns how this acquisition will affect mobile operating systems and the market in general. We probably won’t have a clear idea until that first tightly integrated Motorola smartphone enters the market. In the past, Android partners have been a little reticent about standardizations that would allow Google to achieve this integration. If the new Motorola is a success, then we’re likely to see industry attitudes change quickly.

If Google’s endeavor is successful, then it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the market. This would be a sharp blow to Apple, so how would they roll with punches? We can’t imagine that they haven’t been preparing for this eventuality. Likewise, how would Microsoft react with Windows Mobile? They have embraced the OEMs, but would they see Google’s success with Motorola as proof that they would need to achieve the same kind of integration.

There is, of course, an alternative for Microsoft. Industry insiders believe Google would be wise to take care of the partners that got them to this point. A prime reason is that Microsoft is now in excellent position to make a move. If Google gives OEMs any reason to sever ties with Android, then the Windows Phone OS is going to be an extremely attractive option. In the meantime, Microsoft remains quiet and patient, but they may just be licking their chops.

About the Author:

Zac Kenni is a senior writer and a business developer from a hosting reviews company, www.webhostingsearch.com, provider of best quality and cheap web hosting reviews and web development resources. Lists and rates hosting providers through a collaboration of thorough research and data analysis, performance and user feedback. Twitter zac_kenni

Post from: StayGoLinks

Google Acquires Motorola – What Next

Technorati Tags: Android OS, Microsoft, Motorola, patent hoarding, Patents

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Early in 2010 (and earlier), if such an article appeared in the typical blog, where a number of articles appear on the homepage, then the Google search would often give the homepage rather than the individual article.  This is because the Home Page carries the PageRank associated with the domain, which most often is higher than the PageRank of individual web pages within the website.  This meant that in the Google Search Engine Report Page (SERP), the entry would feature the Title and the Meta Description for the blog as a whole which might not entice the searcher to check out the article.  If the searcher did nevertheless click on that link, then it might even be difficult to find the relevant article if it was some way down the Home page.

To counter these problems, SMM devised an approach which eventually has been running for all the SMM blogs for over a year.  It was labeled the LMNHP approach.

The LMNHP approach

LMNHP stands for Look Mom No Home Page in a link with that old cartoon where the small boy is riding his bicycle with no hands (Look Mom No Hands) with disastrous consequences. The approach was first applied to this blog in a post, Look Mom No Home Page (LMNHP) on 13 Apr 2010.

As you will find in that post, the approach involves an immediate 301 redirect to a single page version of the latest post.  This means that all the links that were pointing at the domain, www.staygolinks.com, are now redirected to this single article web page.  This should give higher PageRank to this web page than it otherwise would have had, while it remains the latest post.  This should mean that the single post has a better chance of appearing high in the  Google Search Engine Report Pages more rapidly.  That is indeed what was seen and so within a matter of weeks it was applied to all four SMM blogs.

The LMNHP Advantages

In summary, the advantages of this approach are as follows:

• The latest blog post ranks highly in relevant keyword searches, rather than the blog domain which points to the home page.
• The SERP entry has the same Title as the blog post, which is a better indicator of what it is about.
• The SERP entry has the Meta Description for the individual blog post, which is much more relevant description of what the individual post is all about

Many analyses of the 4 blogs’ performances in keyword searches during the year have shown that individual posts as they are published do get high rankings and retain those during the whole time they are featured as the latest post.  This compares with the normal behaviour where a blog post may rank well for a few days (a recency factor in play no doubt) but then disappear and reappear in a number of weeks provided they justify a high ranking.

This approach was very widely discussed in a Cre8asite Forums discussion, Look Mom No Home Page.

Although some thought the approach might have merit, the majority were sceptical.  A view was expressed as to whether Google might react in some adverse way to this approach.  In reality, there has been no adverse reaction.  The only surprising aspect was that often the SERP would give the title and description from the single post page but would give the URL as the domain (or Home page) URL.

The LMNHP Disadvantage

The only disadvantage that was raised in the Cre8asite discussion was that some visitors would be confused since the URL they might have typed in their browser is not where they end up, given the 301 redirect.  This has clearly been a problem for a small proportion of visitors.  Given this concern, it became a question of whether the SEO advantages of the approach outweighed the confusion generated for some visitors.

Google Search Shows Interior Pages Faster

As it happens, the SEO advantage of the approach may be much reduced given that Google search results have been improving with time.  What we are finding is that individual blog post pages rather than blog Home pages are now ranking well and quickly in SERPs and will often be what is provided for a keyword search.

Switching off LMNHP for the SMM blogs

Given the visitor concerns and the reduced SEO benefit, it was decided to revert to a standard architecture for the SMM blogs and no longer use the LMNHP approach.  Accordingly all 4 SMM blogs now have the same format.  The Home page for each includes excerpts of the 5 most recent blog posts using the < more > tag, which is a standard feature in WordPress.

We have not detected any negative effects from this and the speed at which new posts are included in SERPs is sometimes staggering.  For example, the single page version of a BPWrap post on Corporate Hacking was appearing at #5 position in Google only 23 minutes after posting it.  It is still appearing at #8 in an unpersonalized search for this currently hot topic.

Interior Web Pages Have Higher PageRanks

This rapid keyword search visibility may also be helped by another phenomenon we have noticed.  Although the Google Toolbar PageRank measurement has its detractors, it still is a crude measure of the importance of individual web pages.  Although internal web pages would, all other things being equal, have lower PageRanks than the Home Page, this is not what we are finding.  The following table shows the Home Page PageRank for the 4 SMM blogs and the PageRanks for the 5 most recent blog posts.

There is no obvious reason in terms of external back links for the two blog posts that have higher PageRanks than the domain PageRanks.  The only reason might be if Google Plus One votes for the web pages are factored in to the search process, however this is denied by Google at this time.

Conclusion

The use of the LMNHP approach for over a year was certainly advantageous but improvements to the Google search process, particularly for blog posts, mean that it is no longer necessary.  Those who prefer the simple standard way of doing things will no doubt be relieved at our return to the fold.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Top Google Rankings Fast

Technorati Tags: Home Page, lmnhp, PageRank, SERP

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The phone-hacking controversy has brought to the fore the dubious ways in which sensation-driven British tabloids secure bits of information that are then splashed across the front pages with screaming headlines.

At least five such techniques have been used: hacking of phones to access messages in voicemail, hacking computers for personal data, ‘blagging’, ‘pinging’, and simply bribing policemen for information.

If blagging is new to you, under the UK Data Protection Act, 1998, it is defined as “knowingly or recklessly obtaining or disclosing personal data without the consent of the data controller”. ‘Blagging’ involves the use of an actor impersonating the target and securing information through calls to banks and other repositories of personal data.

‘Pinging’ is used to find out the whereabouts of celebrities or other targets whose movements may be of interest to news media. The police can ask mobile networks to determine the location of a phone, based on data from nearby radio masts.

Voicemail hacking in Canada is easy when the password feature is bypassed as the Vancouver Sun tells us.

In cases where phone users have opted for convenience over security it’s very easy, It takes less than a minute to get into the voicemail of a vulnerable phone user, an entrée that gives the hacker free rein, from listening to messages, to deleting them, to recording a new greeting.

The hacker doesn’t even need a password.  The hack works when people have opted to go straight to voicemail when calling from their own phone, skipping the requirement to enter a password. That’s a feature of some wireless and land-line voicemails in Canada, but typically users must choose to skip the password requirement; by default it is on. In the United Kingdom and the United States, the default for voicemail is to skip the password, making those mobile phones even more vulnerable.

The hack is made possible by caller ID “spoofing” — a process in which someone can mask the number they are calling from, having another number show up on the caller ID.

In these days of identity theft, extreme prudence is necessary in protecting all personal data.  When that data is on the airwaves, extra special precautions are well justified.

Related Article:
New Scientist: Voicemail hacking: How easy is it?

Post from: StayGoLinks

Voicemail hacking

Posts from the Archives You May Enjoy

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Everyone now-a-days talks about smartphones and tablets (or netbooks for those who are poor and uninteresting ) aka smart or iPhones and iPads ( for those who are very rich and very interesting aka “smart”) like they are the be-all, end-all of technology. Sure, they’re incredibly useful and mobile, but some people even go so far as to say that desktops are stupid, clunky, and irrelevant. Even obsolete!

To be honest, I feel bad for these people, particularly if they’re paying around $2000 for a high-end laptop that performs considerably worse than my uber-powerful desktop that I pieced together for just a little over one grand. Sure, I can’t carry it on a plane and do work during a flight. But I will sleep on a flight. And then when I get home, the same amount of work that took you five hours with your laptop will only take me two hours with my beastly desktop and dual monitor setup.

Don’t get me wrong though. I own a decent (though three years old) laptop and a smartphone. I’m not saying that new mobile technology is useless or dumb or even superfluous. I’m simply trying to make a case for the good old multi-purpose desktop that I grew up using. They are still plenty useful for those that could use the extra power, and they still drive the growth of future technologies.

Desktops Push the Gaming Industry Ahead

Hardcore gamers love desktops. It’s a simple fact of life. And there’s good reason behind this fact too. Currently, the most high-end desktops outperform the most current gaming consoles, hands down. Of course, the most recent gaming consoles are about five years old (and gaming desktops cost considerably more than consoles), but this is exactly my point.

Desktops are flexible. It’s natural, even advisable as long as you have the know-how, for people to open the case of their desktop, and replace a vital component like a graphics card or add a hard drive or stick of memory. Unlike consoles, desktops can be and often are upgraded whenever new computing technology is created. The leading developers of chipset technologies and graphics processing units (such as Nvidia) create new graphics components and technologies for desktop computers, video game consoles, and even smartphones. However, since desktops are so customizable, their newest technologies are developed for desktops first.

Desktops are essentially the lab-rats of the gaming industry. Each year, innumerable desktop users collectively pay millions to “test” out the newest gaming technology. After some slight modifications and innovations, these same technologies are then used in gaming consoles.

Desktops Hold a Solid Niche Market

Though gamers do represent a large portion of desktop users, the niche market of desktop computers extends to video editors, graphic designers, sound engineers, game developers, and computer developers. Ironically, most of these livelihoods that depend on powerful desktop computers develop hardware, software, and content for smartphones! To put it frankly, the future of the internet and its wonderful innovations and designs relies largely on desktops.

Speaking of the Internet, you know all those billions or trillions of servers that host websites and allow cloud computing to be possible? You can thank desktops for those. Everything in the cloud that you can access on your smartphone is being transmitted to you by something that is, more or less, a desktop. Granted these servers are not exactly desktops themselves, but they operate on desktop components, so the more desktops are used and desktop technology is improved, the more reliable the Internet is for everyone.

By-line:

Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges.   She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031 @gmail.com.

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Post from: StayGoLinks

Why Desktops Will Always Be Important

Technorati Tags: gaming, iPhone, monitor

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ReTweets Are The New Currency Of The Web as Michael Arrington noted.  That makes the launch of a new search engine Topsy, which had been in stealth development for three years, particularly propititious.

Links are sorted by those that Twitter users are sending around the most, weighted in favor of links sent by more influential Twitter users. You can sort results over all time (going back to September 2008), last month, week, day or hour. Results show popular links and also the most influential users tweeting about that topic. Click on that user and you’ll see all their tweets about the topic.

Topsy isn’t looking at the number of followers in determining Influence. Rather, Influence is gained when others retweet links you’ve sent out. And when you retweet others, you lose a little Influence. So the more people retweet you, the more Influence you gain. So, yes indeed, retweets are the new currency on the web.

Getting RTs for serious topics

If your topic is particularly newsworthy or appeals to the masses, then getting a large number of ReTweets is not very surprising.  If you are writing on something that has a limited appeal, how do you get your readers to tell others via Twitter about it.  What  tweaked my interest was that a recent tweet about a blog post got 30 ReTweets at this time when checking via a Topsy search for ‘PageRank Null Hypothesis’ (note – some of these had different short URLs).  The Tweet was as follows:

Topsy even indicates that there were 16 associated ReTweets of the corresponding Sphinn entry.  Others may find the reasons for this good performance of interest and value.

Automatic Tweets from the Blogging software

If your blogging software is set up to automatically send a tweet to Twitter when the blog is published, then you should make sure that the Titles ReTweet Well.

You may wish to add appropriate hashtags to your post title as well, although we have more to say on that below.  Chris Brogan also had some related tips on how to Spread Your Wings And Get More Retweet Action.

Hand-crafted Tweets

There is no harm in letting the software do its job, but it may well be appropriate to take its output and make a more twitter-visible tweet.  Louise Doherty has a formula for getting retweeted and that is a good start.  However there are some further tips that are worth mentioning.

The most important is of course to make sure the title has words that are likely to draw your readers interest.  In the above example, it is probable that the phrase ‘Null Hypothesis’ tweaked the interest of all those who have struggled through their statistics courses and wondered how it could possibly come up here.  If you can find a short catchy phrase like that, you are a lot farther ahead.

Working the Hashtags

A hashtag such as #google ensures that all those who watch out for tweets that have been labeled with the google hashtag are likely to see your tweet.  It is a way of targeting a particular audience.  Which hashtags are worth using?  Clearly popular hashtags are the only ones.  You can get an idea on this by doing a Twitter search for say #google.

Check out how old the tweet is at the bottom of the search results page.  Currently for #google it is about 2 hours ago, which is fairly good.  You will get the same result for #seo.  #pagerank on the other hand is about 7 days ago, so it is still worth considering but is less popular.  Just to give a point of comparison, a search for a current trending topic such as “Swine Flu” shows tweets at the bottom of the page that are only from 2 minutes ago.

The other point that is worth mentioning is that the addition of hashtags does not seem to influence twitter searches so that a search for Google will include entries with #google as well.  In other words the ‘#’ is ignored in the Twitter search for the non-tagged version of the word.

Getting a little help from your friends

Having crafted the best ReTweet-able Tweet you can, all that is left to do is to seek a little help from your friends.   If you have done your work well, they will probably be delighted to do their bit.

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Post from: StayGoLinks

Tweet Tips For Max ReTweets (RTs)

Technorati Tags: hashtag, Michael Arrington, PageRank, Search, topsy, Twitter

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Free Is Never Free

That innovative thinker, Chris Anderson, will be publishing his new book, Free, at some time in 2008, we presume. This will discuss giving zero cost products/services away for free and then making money on upgraded versions. That’s one of the opportunities this zero-cost virtual world now gives us. A more important sub-theme in the book is that of course everyone pays for such products or services by investing their personal time in them. This means that you should be even more skeptical in checking the teeth of any gift horses. Looking after that horse could involve major effort and expense.

This is particularly important in thinking about website review processes. Whatever you learn from such a process may well involve you in major effort to implement the findings. Given the importance of your website and of your time, it’s important to make the right choice.

Who can best assess your website’s performance?

Whatever objectives you as the owner may have for your website, they can only be achieved if there are enough visitors to the website and if they can take the actions that you hope for. So it boils down to good visitor traffic and visitors having satisfactory experiences on the website. Both aspects are tough to evaluate. If you do not think so, just spend a little time checking out the excellent research work that Jared Spool, and his team at UIE (User Interface Engineering), do on website usability. There’s more to the way visitors move around a website than the you might have imagined.

Which website review process is best for you?

Assuming that you are not about to invest in a massive program of visitor testing of the website, some simpler process that looks at all aspects of performance must be found. All aspects of performance covers a lot of ground. To get a sense of this, you might wish to review a very long checklist for website review put out by Polson Enterprises. Unfortunately this has not been updated since 2006, but most of it is still very appropriate. It stretches to fifteen pages and includes almost 300, often meaty, paragraphs on different aspects of website performance.

A website review covering that degree of detail is a major undertaking. A better initial step is to take a ‘big picture‘ or ‘helicopter vision‘ approach. This will help to identify where work may be needed. If you are searching for free resources for this big picture approach, there are two main alternatives. Some Forums offer such ‘big picture’ website reviews and some experts will do such reviews but require the freedom to publish their work.

Forums Offering Website Reviews

The type of website review you will get from a Forum depends on the interests of its members and their skills and experience. You should only consider active forums where you’re likely to get a number of members commenting. Three Forums seem to do a reasonable job in this respect:

• Estetica Design Forum > Graphic Design & Web Design Critique
  Given the fields of interest of its members, you might expect a review that will put much more emphasis on graphic design aspects of the website.
• Web Design Forum, UK > Web Designing Resource > Website Reviews
  Checking on activity in other threads, although the main emphasis of the Forum is Web design, some attention is paid to other Internet marketing aspects.
• Cre8asite Forums > Web Site Building, Testing and Support > Website Hospital
  The Cre8asite Forums (where I moderate) covers all aspects of web design and Internet marketing. Reviewers would therefore bring a variety of perspectives in their comments.

Experts Offering Free Website Reviews

If you do not mind an expert giving a public review of your website, then there are a number of experts you can consult.

For example, Jackie Baker at Search Engine Guide offers a weekly site clinic column. As she says:

Small businesses are invited to submit their websites for review. Can’t beat a little free advice, right? I’ll be looking at the design, copy, usability, SEO, marketing, and any technical issues that may prevent websites from drawing loyal, active visitors and meeting goals. Each week, I’ll give the top five issues the website owner/manager can address to significantly improve performance.

Scott Hendison offers a Free SEO Site Review. As he explains:

For a limited time, you can get a video made of your own website, seeing how it complies with generally accepted search engine optimization best practices.
…
In exchange, all I ask from you is that you agree to allow me to make my information public, so that others may learn from the experience. Selected video reviews will be shared on my site and on my blog.

Such expert views are likely to be well-founded, particularly since the expert is also going public and their reputation will be affected by what they reveal.

Free Website Reviews Come With A Risk

There is a risk in having your website reviewed in public. The UK Web Design Forum outlines this well:

When posing a link to a site to be reviewed remember that some people may not like your site and could leave comments to that effect. These threads can appear on a search engine results for your website or other searches, so if you get negative comments people who search for your site may see these.

Please be sure that you don’t mind that some members may not like your design and may criticise the work you have done. Most of these members will offer opinions on how to improve, which is what this section of the forum is about. So if you are looking for helpful advice and a honest view of your site this is the perfect place to do it.

Really all we are saying is post your sites at your risks, this forum will not be held responsible for any loss of business or negative things that happen due to you deciding to place your site here for a review.

Time Is Money

Each webmaster will decide for herself or himself how to balance the usefulness of the website review, its cost and the time it takes to get it. However it is done, it is important to have your website performing well and that requires knowledge. SMM is now offering a Website Mini-Review service that gives good value in getting the right big picture view. It’s not free, but it may be less costly, taking everything into account, than these other free services.

If you have your preferred method of assessing the performance of a website that you think others might find useful, why not give details in a comment.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Website Reviews Free, Really?

Technorati Tags: Forum, Internet marketing, usability, Web Design, website review

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Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, seems to be acknowledging that his protégé has problems. He has accepted one of the Knight News Challenge 2008 awards for a project that will create a technology to give users more information about the origins and sourcing of digital content. He will be working with the BBC and Reuters on what has been dubbed “source tagging“.

Tags To Bring Order To The Cyber Sphere

Tagging certainly seems to be something that has real potential in helping us all navigate our way through the World Wide Web. Tags do of course come in two flavors. You can take a body of text and use a computer to determine what are the most frequently used terms. That is one way and it may be the route that Sir Tim is following. What is much more powerful is to encourage authors to choose a few tags that they feel will best represent their work. Thankfully this version seems to be attracting more and more attention, perhaps given the problems that Google is having with computer based algorithms.

A good example of the approach can be seen in the excellent blog of Kate Trgovac. Just look at her post on links for 2008-05-13. You will find for every entry she has added tags. If you wish to see more on what she believes is important on any given tag, then you can click through on that tag. There you will find the favorites she has collected, which are typified by that tag. She is using the website, del.icio.us, to hold these favorites. That is a free service and anyone can do it.

Picturing Tags – The Tag Cloud

If you want to get a sense of what Kate Trgovac feels is important and worth tagging, how can you best do that? The del.icio.us website does give a listing of all the tags she has used (1203 in all at the moment) with the numbers of web pages for each tag. Such a long listing is a little indigestible, so a visual approach seems more appropriate. This is where the tag cloud comes in. You can see a mini-example at the top of the right sidebar. Perhaps we should mention that the tagcloud.com website is somewhat confusing here, since it seems to be only a register of RSS newsfeeds.

If you’re working with del.icio.us, it would be nice to be able to easily display a tag cloud of your favorites. Nick Bouton seems to have attempted that in 2005 but apparently ran into problems with the server capabilities of the del.icio.us website.

It is perhaps an indication of the attraction of tag clouds that a number of people have worked on appropriate software. Eric (engtech) developed one in 2007, which was somewhat complex. If you can accept complexity, then you may even be tempted to use a Flash Tag Cloud WordPress plugin that Alex Cristache found. It is one developed by Roy Tanck and is called WP Cumulus, in a pleasing play of words on the notion of a tag cloud.

WordPress Has A Tag Cloud Feature

Luckily for those who are enthusiastic about tag clouds, and are authors of WordPress blogs, the whole situation has become dramatically simpler. With the latest upgrade (version 2.5), tags are now much more effectively supported. In particular, there is now a template tag function, wp_tag_cloud. That makes the addition of a mini tag cloud to a sidebar almost child’s play. You may have noticed a small example in the right sidebar when you arrived at this blog.

Making Your Very Easy WordPress Tag Cloud Web Page

Displaying the full set of tags generated for a blog is clearly inappropriate for a sidebar display. What is much preferable is a web page displaying the full set of tags. As it turns out, with a little ingenuity there is a very simple way of creating such a web page. This is done by creating a specific page template just for that page, which we suggest should be named tags.php. A suitable code for this in the basic Kubrics theme is shown below.

<?php /*
Template Name: Tag Cloud
*/ ?>

<?php get_header(); ?>

<div id="content" class="narrowcolumn">

<?php if ( function_exists('wp_tag_cloud') ) : ?>
<div style="margin:25px;border:1px solid #111;padding:15px;">
<ul  style="margin:0 0 0 8px;padding:0;">
<?php wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=24&number=0'); ?>
</ul>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>

<p style="margin-left:33px;">
Tags:
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/tagcloud" rel="tag">tagcloud</a>
 in Technorati |
<a href="http://del.icio.us/bwelford/tagcloud" rel="tag">tagcloud</a>
 in del.icio.us</p>
</div>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

An example of the output can be seen in the tag cloud page for this blog. The only point to note is that the tags shown below the tag cloud are not a natural feature of a WordPress blog page. WordPress posts do have tags, but WordPress pages do not, unless they are added manually as is done here. The left-hand tagcloud tag for Technorati is applicable to all tag clouds and can be left as is. The right-hand link for the del.icio.us tagcloud can be modified to link to the individual author’s del.icio.us tagcloud favorites, if so desired.

You can copy and paste the above code to create your own tags.php file and it can be FTP-ed to your own Theme folder. The properties of this file should be set to Read and Write for the Owner and Read only for others.

Once the tags.php file has been uploaded, the Tag Cloud web page is very easily created as a New Page in the ‘Write Page’ Subpanel. Select the template to be used at the very bottom of the Subpanel from the drop-down list. Its name is Tag Cloud. In the Title field, type a suitable Title such as ‘Tag Cloud for this Blog’. Within the Content field, type the text which should appear as the heading within the Page and this is all that is required. This could appear as follows:

<h2>Tag Cloud for this Blog</h2>

The template will then automatically add in the complete tag cloud together with the two tag links for tagcloud which appear below it.

Once the Tag Cloud Web Page has been created, a link to it can then be displayed at an appropriate point on the Home Page. Visitors to the blog can then easily use it to get a sense of what subjects the blog covers.

Related:
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Post from: StayGoLinks

A Very Easy WordPress Tag Cloud Web Page

Technorati Tags: tag cloud, tagcloud, Template, Version 2.5, word cloud, WordPress

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In the UK, Barclays is helping customers stay in touch with their money with the launch of a mobile banking service. For now, they can check their account balance and statements but more services are being lined up for the future.

In the USA, the Bank of America is offering Mobile Banking Services. This already includes checking account balances and viewing transactions, paying bills and transferring funds between accounts and locating a nearby ATM or Banking Center along with maps and directions.

Not surprisingly we’re also seeing events like the next MobileMonday Austin, TX event on June 11, which will cover mobile banking and payments. That will cover not only the opportunities and how to benefit from them, but also the threats such as the increased security risks and how to counter them. Nevertheless mobile banking represents an enormous economic potential.

Tags: Mobile, banking

Post from: StayGoLinks

Mobile Banking

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You see in telling the world we did say Courtesy of Answer.com. Our error was quickly pointed out to us by Marjolein Hoekstra of the CleverClogs Blog and by Gina Larson of Answers.com. The CleverClogs Blog was one of the beta testing websites for the AnswerTips gizmo. Within minutes the correction was made and the news feed aggregators repinged. However for a short time Google and others were working with that Answer.com version of the title.

Perhaps the mistake was a natural one. I decided to do some exploring. It reminds me of a related domain. Some were concerned as Ask Jeeves sacked Jeeves and became the simple Ask.com. What a great domain name that is. I for one always felt that it was almost a no-brainer to go with simplicity. Of course you should Ask your questions. As far as one can tell it has been a very positive move. An alternative way of responding to questions is to give an Answer. So Answer.com would seem to be an ideal domain to do this. Surprisingly typing in www.answer.com currently gives a Server Not Found message. The domain does exist as a Internic WhoIs search will confirm with the following information:

Domain Name: ANSWER.COM
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com
Name Server: GATEWAY1.PLATINUM.COM
Name Server: GATEWAY2.PLATINUM.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 26-jun-2006
Creation Date: 27-feb-1992
Expiration Date: 28-feb-2008

Why would someone sit on such a fine domain name?

Doing a Google search for “answer.com” gives over 90,000 web pages. Some of these are composite domain names that include answer.com. However many show that precise domain name, answer.com. Even if there is no active website at that domain, many mistakenly think so. Perhaps it’s only a small surprise to find that the #1 item in this search is the Answers.com website. There is no mention of ‘answer.com’ on the answers.com website but the Google cache shows that it appears in links to the website. Try the same search in Yahoo!, MSN/Live or Ask and you’ll get the same answer. Perhaps in our confusion I and many others have helped spread the illusion that, if you type answer.com, you really intended to find the answers.com website.

People now a days don’t often type in a domain in the address bar. They more often type the name in the Google search field. Or they click on a favourite link. This tendency will be even stronger as people use their cell phones to surf the mobile Web.

Does this mean the value of these shorter domains will be reduced? They really will not bring the traffic they used to. At this time, the keyword “answer.com” would seem to be the property of Answers.com, at least in the eyes of the major search engines. Given my satisfaction with Answers.com for their AnswerTips, I think they’ve earned that answer.com visibility.

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Answers.com or Answer.com For Answers

Technorati Tags: answer, answers, domain, inactive, queries, questions

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Mobile Local Search, the most popular Internet application. It certainly is not true today but it won’t be long before it is. In other words, this forecast is that more Internet visitors will use Mobile Local Search than will use any other Internet application. It’s only a question of time and probably not too long a time.

Some may find this forecast suspect, but there are strong reasons for stating this so confidently. Indeed part of the argument can be confirmed by a little personal reflection. Before getting into the reasoning, it is perhaps worth mentioning how this provocative scenario came to mind. It was triggered by a thoughtful post, Local Search at Rest, and Local in Motion, by William Slawski, who is one of the most erudite commentators of this scene. He and Mike Blumenthal have had some communications on whether Google Maps (Local) data will become more accurate and useful over time. They are both pretty sure that it will. However it is not the product development that drives the forecast I discussed earlier but rather the market demand. Let’s spell out the reasons.

A) The Mobile Web is/will be very much bigger than the regular Desktop PC Web. This is being seen most clearly in Asia with Europe coming along and the U.S. at the back of the pack.
B) Local Search has always been an important demand even before the Internet existed. That’s why most homes and offices had directories of all kinds: white pages, Yellow Pages, local directories, trade directories and the list went on. Remember when you could speak to a human being at 411 and together try to figure out where that Italian restaurant was with the funny name.
C) That demand still exists and regrettably the various Yellow Pages never seem to have leveraged the incredible assets they had. Their search functions are still very error prone, serving up telephone numbers for completely nonsensical companies and not always including the one you’re really looking for. If you’ve bothered to use an online 411 process, just think of the last half dozen searches you’ve done to confirm the truth of this.
D) Of course the data is not very clean as William Slawski and Mike Blumenthal pointed out. However the demand, particularly on the Mobile web, is so strong that whoever gets it right will have a real gold mine. Particularly when on the go with your Mobile device, the Mobile web is the only way to go to find what you’re looking for. Directories are irrelevant.
E) Given this, there is every incentive for Google to put a lot of effort into this application. No one else is likely to catch them.

As William Slawski notes in one of the comments on his Local Search post, “The intuitiveness and ease of use of a service like 877-520-FIND can help grow a user base for the information, and that may be incentive for many businesses to put more effort into getting their business information into those local searches.” I don’t believe there’s a need to grow the user base. We’re all eager to get such data and have been for many years. It would seem to be a big win/win/win opportunity for everyone.

Tags: Mobile, local search

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Mobile Local Search, the most popular Internet application

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