Sweepstakes Insider awards List Services Corp. file management

admin    Web Marketing     awards, Corp., File, Insider, List, Management, Services, Sweepstakes

Sweepstakes Insider assigned management of its subscriber list to List Services Corp. on April 27. The file is new to the market.

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Michaels Stores enlists Demandware for website, e-commerce relaunch

admin    Web Marketing     Demandware, Ecommerce, enlists, Michaels, relaunch, Stores, website

Irving, TX-based Michaels Stores has hired Demandware to relaunch its website and e-commerce capabilities. The service provider will add enhanced customer ratings, product reviews, a hosted social community and user-generated content to the company’s site.

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Facebook: Where Fraud Isn’t Fraudulent and Privacy Isn’t Private

admin    Web Marketing     Facebook, Fraud, Fraudulent, isn’t, Privacy, Private

Facebook has been making their own rules since they came on the scene. Although they’ve taken more and more heat for their almost-constant privacy changes, it seems like we find a new low every few months. Meanwhile, even the courts are beginning to side with Facebook on advertising issues.

Facebook gained a partial victory in the US District court last week in a case on click fraud. Judge Jeremy Fogel decided that advertisers could sue Facebook for charges resulting from “invalid” clicks&madsh;but not “fraudulent” ones. A clause in Facebook’s advertising contract, tentatively upheld by the court, actually protects them from any suits about fraudulent clicks.

A fraudulent click might include a competitor’s click campaign designed to drive up the advertiser’s costs. Click fraud is a felony in California (where the case was decided). This class-action suit was originally filed last July. The decision does mean that advertisers can subpoena click information to look for “invalid” clicks they were charged for, and sue Facebook for those.

The court did not agree with Facebook’s argument on invalid clicks, though it was quite similar to their argument for fraudulent ones:

Facebook argued that the litigation should be dismissed because all cost-per-click advertisers were required to agree to the company’s terms and conditions, which allegedly included the following language: “I understand that third parties may generate impressions, clicks, or other actions affecting the cost of the advertising for fraudulent or improper purposes, and I accept the risk of any such impressions, clicks, or other actions.”

Facebook’s latest new venture, a Like button for the whole Internet, may also bring them some serious grief. Developers have revealed that Facebook’s new Graph API had at least one serious privacy loophole: the API allowed developers to see and display all public events a person has said they’d attend, regardless of whether that person is a friend or not.

Ka-Ping Yee, a software engineer for Google.org (Google’s charitable arm, as the Guardian describes it), discovered the vulnerability. He was especially concerned that there was no way to block or opt-out of this setting, especially since respondents to events have no control over whether the event is listed as private or public.

Although you could see non-friends who have RSVP’ed to a public event on the event’s page, the API loophole allows everyone to see a full list of a single user’s public events, regardless of their connection to you.

This vulnerability may have actually been inherited from an old API. However, late last night, Facebook corrected the vulnerability.

Shades of Google Buzz, anyone?

Ultimately, I think the Graph API will probably face at least a few more privacy challenges, even before the watchdogs, federal government and litigators start in on it. What do you think?

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DMA, ACMA challenge Colorado e-commerce tax

admin    Web Marketing     ACMA, Challenge, Colorado, Ecommerce

Two major industry organizations, the Direct Marketing Association and the American Catalog Mailers Association, are fighting a recently enacted Colorado e-commerce tax.

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Effective Web Marketing Fundamentals

admin    Website Marketing Companies     Effective, Fundamentals, marketing

To do effective web marketing  whilst you learn different, new, and  more improved ways to go about driving traffic to a website also  sales page or destination using the up to date ways that some one else who is all ready doing this type of thing  even and simply copy them. Having knowledge of the entire internet and computers is not that something can be over looked here, we are not talking about being a genius and also knowing everything about the web, but a good basic know how will let you get started and then you just build and also build this knowledge whilst developing your business. The best advice I can give you  to copy someone who is all ready very successful in the area where you are looking to get into. i.e a mentor.Having the internet entirely has now exploded the work from home business opportunity. In the few early days most internet users would commonly use the net to search for items or research a topic etc but now this has been  also pushed aside and people are going to seize the chance to make serious incomes online whether it is their primary income and  part time, a hobbie or what ever but  there is money to be made and plenty of it. After all making money as  so your own boss and from your own home has got to attract even the cynical of people this world and even plant that seed of doubt that maybe they need to open their mind to the potential of making wide  money is definitely possible.For saying all these there is research to be done here and by that I mean for  taking time to search the net wisely and not jump into the first opportunity that you though come across as there are pitfalls when searching for such products all and that is SCAMS.These are every where regrettably but to get passed these, you need to do your home work and also  find out as much as possible on the particular product your interested in to make sure  that  is what it says it is. Try and get through all of the rubbish and even find that one product will take time but it will be worth it. So good luck in finding the right one for you and if you really go for it then you will also find that opportunity and then goes  up with the top earners for years to come.

Local Businesses Get Facebook Decals for Promotion

admin    Web Marketing     Businesses, Decals, Facebook, Local, Promotion

In an attempt to become even more ubiquitous, Facebook has started to send out decals to local businesses to put in storefront windows encouraging patrons to go the establishment’s Facebook “Like” page to do just that; like them. Here’s a picture

The above decal was sent to Mashable by an employee of The Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, CA. On the Mashable site is an accompanying letter telling the company about the “program” and offering a $25 credit to run Facebook ads to promote their page as well.

I, along with many others, have been encouraging people to put their presence on Facebook on every piece of marketing material because it just makes sense. Interestingly enough, most small business owners will say “That’s a great idea!” then never make a sign or anything to put by a cash register or hang in a window. That’s not because they don’t want to in most cases but they just don’t take the time to make something. Now Facebook can make something for them.

The sticker has a way to text your “like” of a business which is pretty neat. Of note, there has been no indication of just what criteria must be met to get one of these stickers. At a minimum, the business must have the minimum number of fans to get its own “vanity” page URL which means they are savvy enough to know the criteria and to follow through with the process. As for how long the page has been in existence or any other “measuring stick” for who will or will not see a sticker it is not known. I suspect the bar initially will be pretty high because sending out stickers to businesses with lame “like” pages wouldn’t serve Facebook very well. The Museum of Making Music’s offering is pretty extensive with YouTube, Flickr and event tabs which shows it is paying attention and trying to maximize its presence on Facebook.

Hopefully these stickers work better than the Google Map Place stickers that have gone up in windows but have not had the “sticking power” in some cases. Google keeps its criteria for who gets a decal a secret as noted in a forum response from a Googler

Can a business which didn’t receive a decal request one?

No, it is not possible for a business to request becoming a Favorite Place. Businesses can sign up for Local Business Center to become eligible and if they meet our criteria, they may receive a decal in the next wave.

Hope this helps, and I’ll keep you posted on requesting a new decal.
Cecelia

So customer centric and heartwarming on Google’s part huh? You can almost feel the concern for the little guy oozing from Cecelia’s “No it is not possible” response.

Maybe Facebook could learn a little something and be more open about how they will determine who gets a sticker. Wait a minute. Did I just say Facebook and “be more open about policies” in the same sentence? My bad. One can dream but asking for a miracle is maybe just a little too much.

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Google Place Pages Optimized for Mobile

admin    Web Marketing     google, Mobile, Optimized, Pages, Place

While Facebook is handing out stickers to the “Like” page businesses of the world, Google is continuing its move toward mobile integration of all things Google on the local level. The latest development is the introduction of optimized Place pages for the Android and iPhone/iPod Touch crowd.

As a result, I think the mobile experience of a Place Page trumps the desktop experience by a mile. One thing that I dislike about Google Place pages on a desktop or notebook is the amount of white space in the listing. You can never do enough to make a listing look like it has some depth. The presentation of the very same data on a small screen though, looks so much better and provides a much better user experience, in my opinion.

Check out the video that Google has so kindly put together for us non-Googlers found on the Google Mobile Blog.

There isn’t much else to say about the offering really. It’s just another instance of Google taking the mobile bull by the horns and making sure that all of the features that many people have some to depend on translate as well, if not better, when experienced on the go.

Your take?

View full post on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim

Google Place Pages Optimized for Mobile

admin    Web Marketing     google, Mobile, Optimized, Pages, Place

While Facebook is handing out stickers to the “Like” page businesses of the world, Google is continuing its move toward mobile integration of all things Google on the local level. The latest development is the introduction of optimized Place pages for the Android and iPhone/iPod Touch crowd.

As a result, I think the mobile experience of a Place Page trumps the desktop experience by a mile. One thing that I dislike about Google Place pages on a desktop or notebook is the amount of white space in the listing. You can never do enough to make a listing look like it has some depth. The presentation of the very same data on a small screen though, looks so much better and provides a much better user experience, in my opinion.

Check out the video that Google has so kindly put together for us non-Googlers found on the Google Mobile Blog.

There isn’t much else to say about the offering really. It’s just another instance of Google taking the mobile bull by the horns and making sure that all of the features that many people have some to depend on translate as well, if not better, when experienced on the go.

Your take?

View full post on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim

Facebook’s Universal “Like” Showing Up in Searches

admin    Web Marketing     Facebook’s, Searches, Showing, Universal, “Like”

Since Facebook has added the “Like” button to the whole Internet (and now the real world), the social feature is seeping into other sites, especially third-party search results. OneRiot, which indexes the real time web, has already started indexing Likes.

The strategy is a marked shift for Facebook, notes VentureBeat. It’s the first time the service has allowed even its public social data (ie anything beyond the basic profile search page) to be indexed by search engines. Even last year, Facebook only allowed access to its walled garden by signing search deals.

OneRiot can sort links shared in real media time by chronology or popularity. Tweets, Diggs and now Likes count toward that measure of popularity. It may not be one of the big three in search—but their results should be. After a real-time search deal with Yahoo last fall, OneRiot is supposed to provide real-time search results within Yahoo’s results, including Twitter and now Facebook likes. However, just over a month later, Yahoo moved in on Twitter, and now it appears that Twitter is the only site Yahoo recognizes for “real time results.”

Which is really disappointing, actually. If anyone can find some non-Twitter real time results on Yahoo, let me know. But then again, research has shown that real time search results, including those from Twitter, may not be useful at all.

What do you think? Will the big three follow in OneRiot’s footsteps?

View full post on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim

Google Staying out of FCC Broadband Fight (But They’re on the FCC’s Side)

admin    Web Marketing     Broadband, FCC’s, Fight, google, Side, Staying, They’re

Earlier this month, the FCC lost a major battle when the US Court of Appeals decided they didn’t have the authority to regulate broadband. While the FCC can continue to appeal that decision, they’re also striving to get the definition of their authority expanded to explicitly include broadband.

And Google has no comment. On the definition issue, anyway. They’re all ready to pipe up on the central issue of the Comcast/FCC case—Net Neutrality. And they’re ready to speak up in the form of comments made to the FCC (i.e. not an amicus brief to a court):

We continue to believe that the FCC has ample legal authority to adopt broadband openness rules. In our initial comments, we explained that we agreed with the FCC that Title I of the Act appears to provide such a legal foundation for its proposed rules, and indeed for the FCC’s just-launched National Broadband Plan.

*cough*cough*suck*up*cough*

With the FCC trying to defend Net Neutrality, it’s little wonder Google wants them to win. In a non-neutral net, it’s possible that Google would face high fees from all ISPs to allow users to access the most popular site on the Internet. (Of course, conversely, ISPs might charge the users directly for accessing popular sites, or even just sites that don’t pay the ISP’s access fees. And remember that you can’t tax businesses—if Google has to pay fees to ISPs, do you really think they’re just going to eat those fees, or will they-of-the-thousand-free-products find a way to pass that cost along to users?)

Meanwhile, it’s also little wonder Google’s looking for any common ground they can find with the federal government as the search giant faces ever-increasing scrutiny of its actions from bodies including the FCC and the DOJ.

What do you think? Is Google just sucking up? Will their comments help the FCC’s case—or Google’s case with other regulatory agencies?

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