The Webidiotz Portland Oregon Grand Opening

Nestled in the heart of the beautiful Pearl District of Portland Oregon, Webidiotz has opened its doors and is ready for business! Businesses all over Oregon are waking up to the fact that a website is no longer a “nice-to-have”, but a “need-to-have” for their business. A comprehensive, online marketing campaign that includes web site design, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), domain hosting, site hosting and all the bells and whistles that come along with it is simply a necessity in this business environment.

This year, thousands of Oregon businesses will ask themselves “What is the lowest cost way to improve my sales?” Most will turn to their marketing campaigns, and some might look at print, radio and television spots to generate revenue. Some will look at last year’s campaigns to try to determine how much they impacted their bottom line. But wouldn’t it be nice to know? That’s the beauty of Internet marketing done right – you can track your campaigns’ performance, and know what your ROI is at a very granular level.

Let’s be frank for a moment. Comprehensive Internet marketing campaigns are not being done well or even at all for many businesses. Some businesses understand the need, but don’t understand the process. Some businesses understand that %80 of people who are looking for a product or service start their search with a web search engine like Google. That’s where SEO comes in. One of the critical factors in an Internet marketing campaign is making sure you’re beautiful new website gets found by people looking for your services.

Another critical factor is making sure your site has a professional look and feel, suited to your brand and your business. The content needs to be well thought out, well organized, and contain everything a customer is looking for. Users only spend seconds on a homepage making a decision about your company.

The final critical factor is your measuring success. How does your site perform? How does it hold up against competitors? Is it easy, cost-effective to maintain and update? Is the hosting solution for the domain and site hosting good enough? At Webidiotz we provide businesses the tools needed to measure these things for themselves. Having your internet marketing company tell you that your campaign is successful without providing the tools to check for yourself is like having an investment advisor tell you you’re making money without providing income statements. At Webidiotz, we would never accept that, and neither should you. Take the tools, measure your success, and engage us to improve it.

The big hold up with many businesses getting online has been price. At Webidiotz we’ve tailored the process to give our clients award winning sites with superb marketing strategies and tools at an affordable price. Don’t believe me? Call today for a free consultation at 1-888-211-8133 and if you think our prices and work is ahead of the competition, I will come and take you out for a beer personally (assuming you’re over the legal age!)

Teg Ryan
CTO, Webidiotz

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Experts try to devise innovative ways for enhancing people's interaction with the Web

There's no shortage of uses for the loads of data available online. Advertisers always look to mine the photos and status updates that you post on networking sites to better sell their wares. The problem is figuring out really how to organize and put the data in an informative way, instead of forcing users to sift through unending heaps of mind-numbing spreadsheets. When are pie charts and bar graphs enough to break down a set of numbers? Which is the best way to display cellphone call logs or something like senators' voting records?

These were some of the questions debated by researchers, corporate financial analysts and computer science professors at the annual symposium workshops of the Human-Computer Interaction La, University of Maryland. A research manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers, Mave Houston, stated: "We are trying to understand data and then make sense of it visually. But there is no way of evaluating how effective these visuals really are."

Linking information, devising user-friendly technology devices and coming up with various innovative ways for improving people's interaction with the Web has been part of the Lab's mission since it was founded in 1983 by Ben Shneiderman. Since then, it has been credited with generating hyperlinks - highlighted words in a document, which direct surfers to another site - even down to their peculiar light blue color.

Shneiderman also developed a tool 'treemaps' that display information as blocks of color to indicate hierarchal relationships. "It's satisfying to notice what was once considered esoteric research becoming mainstream computer science, which has revolutionized industries," Shneiderman stated. "Just think, YouTube works simply because designers made it easier to search for videos effectively. Now we’ve high schoolchildren creating videos that register 5 million views."

Evolution of the Web from a mere publishing medium to a great programming platform

An insightful essay in the prestigious publication ‘The Observer’ tracks the evolution of Web technology. The tech expert John Naughton starts off, noting, “Once upon a time, web pages were mere text, written in something called HTML (Hypertext Mark-Up Language). This is a code, which uses angle brackets, quotation marks and forward slashes. When your computer sought a web page from a site, it sent back the text file; your web browser program rendered it for displaying on your screen.”

Such was the state of the technology just about 15 years ago. In 1994, a programmer working for Netscape, the first browser firm, thought of the new idea of embedding mini-programs (termed scripts) in a web page that a browser could run even as it was rendering the page. This idea by Brendan Eich would let the creator of the page incorporate all kinds of useful functionality. His scripting language was first known as Mocha and later LiveScript, but wound up being termed JavaScript.

The ability to run JavaScript was implemented in Version 2 of the Netscape browser for the first time in December 1995. It was an innovation, which transformed the Web. Virtually every web page is now loaded with JavaScript. If you are keen on checking how far this has actually gone, download and install a clever plug-in program termed NoScript for the Firefox browser.

NoScript monitors every page and then alerts you to all those scripts embedded into it. You can opt to allow or forbid your browser to run them. What this indicates is the extent to which the Web has evolved from a mere publishing medium to a great programming platform.

‘Twitter Power’ helps develop a holistic social networking strategy

Over the last couple of years, many forward-thinking global companies such as Apple, Whole Foods and JetBlue have discovered the immense monetary and goodwill gains of leveraging the emerging social media phenomenon. It has helped them directly reach prospective and existing consumers, build a strong brand identity, and boost sales. Of course, this is just the beginning!

Twitter is right at top of the highly vibrant social media movement, letting members connect with each other in real time via 'tweets' (short text messages). These messages can be received either by e-mail or via the Twitter site, cell phone, or instant messenger.

Many companies worldwide have begun building specialized teams within their organizational set-up, dedicated solely for the purpose of immediately responding to tweets from aware consumers about their services, products and brand experience.

'Twitter Power - How to Dominate Your Market - One Tweet at a Time' (Hardcover, 272 pages, Publishers: Wiley List Price: $24.95), an engaging book by Joel Comm along with Anthony Robbins (foreword by) and Ken Burge, tries to project itself as a complete guide for personal as well as professional Twitter usage. The book presents a glimpse of companies that are leading the Twitter movement.

This new documentation analyzes the whole phenomenon and shows how to successfully integrate Twitter into conventional marketing strategies. The aim of the exercise is to help establish a solid base on the Twitter platform. It provides tips on increasing awareness for your services or products, and even handling negative publicity from angry consumers.

Can Bing be a game-changer in search advertising?

Since Bing’s release, the debate over the quality of its search results vis-à-vis Google goes on. There are reports that the new and improved search product from Microsoft has taken over the number two spot from Yahoo Search, albeit temporarily.

Another set of data from user experience research company User Centric concludes that Bing's cosmetic changes could well bring major gains for search advertisers. The company invited a group of searchers, providing them with four specific queries so that same results on both Google and Bing could be obtained.

It was found that Bing searchers were much more likely to view the search ads placed on the right side of the page. On average, 42% of them viewed those sponsored links, whereas only 25% did on Google. The difference did not extend to ads, which showed up above the organic results. It also did not reflect in clicks, as ad click-through rates on both engines were about the same.

The sample size was rather small. User Centric study covered just about two dozen searchers. Managing director Gavin Lew stated the smaller size ensured a better qualitative analysis that backed up the findings. It needs to be noted that a novelty factor might have contributed to the users' willingness to view at the Bing ads.

Lew commented it could also be suggestive of a more ad-friendly design.
However, the inconclusive eye-tracking data and design theories cannot make up for the fact that Bing results aren't as comprehensive as Google's currently.

If Microsoft can ensure faster indexing of sites as well as greater relevance, Bing could prove to be a game-changer in terms of online search advertising. User Centric will carry the study again a few months later to establish the trend.

A more personal and social computing experience with Opera Unite

It's something anyone can use! With Opera Unite, even non-technical users can choose to serve and share content and services from their own computers in the form of intuitive applications.

Opera Unite promises to enable a whole new gamut of social software on the Web - applications that benefit from presence of several users online at the same time. With Opera Unite, they can directly connect bypassing third-party server control.

A product analyst for Opera Unite, Lawrence Eng, mentions in a blog post on the site that the technology is a radical first step towards addressing what he calls the 'Internet's unfulfilled promise'. Sharing his thoughts and vision, he elaborates that it’s about our ability to connect with each other and also participate meaningfully online -without losing control of our data, on our own terms.

"It will redefine what's possible with Web applications, and we invite users to join us in moving beyond stale ideas and (self-imposed) limitations. With Opera Unite, we can start moving in a different direction leading to a more personal and social computing experience, which actually begins to deliver on the promise of the Internet bringing together people in meaningful ways," the technical expert adds.

Opera Unite offers the platform for you to come up with the applications driven by
your imagination. It offers an opportunity to creative developers and entrepreneurs to envision new ways for people to interact online, so that computing gets truly interpersonal.

Opera Unite is currently in its technical preview phase.

Could a fall in their fortune mean obscurity for MySpace and Bebo?

Have MySpace and Bebo started to fall behind in the competitive world of social networking. This is the question posed by Jemima Kiss and Charles Arthur of The Guardian. The tech experts try to examine the apparent decline of 'once industry darlings' and the simultaneous rise of their rivals.

Going back into the past, the article notes Rupert Murdoch's buyout of Intermix Media and its MySpace site was arguably the moment the whole world started taking social networking seriously. This was in July 2005.The acquisition in spite of the astonishment of his old media rivals at the $580m price tag was vindicated by a deal with Google in October 2006 that guaranteed News Corp a whopping $900m in ad revenue over the next three and a half years, providing set traffic targets were met.

The Google deal will be over at the end of June 2010, and with it about half of MySpace's revenue! The search engine giant has already informed it isn't really benefiting from the deal, though Owen van Natta, MySpace's new chief executive, tried to play down the importance of the agreement, stating enhancing user experience was the priority.

The latest data from web metrics firms is not too encouraging. They all suggest that MySpace is in decline - whether it's in terms of number of page views, or time spent on the site per user. The same holds true for the British-devised Bebo, purchased by AOL in March 2008 for nearly $850m.Its numbers are also getting worse.

"For both, such a reverse could well herald a decline towards obscurity – similar to that suffered by another British social networking website, Friends Reunited bought by ITV for £120m in December 2005, recently valued at only £20m," the tech writers caution.