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Unbelievable as it may sound, there is a bill in front of congress right now whose passage will mark the beginning of internet censorship in the United States. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was drafted by Representative Lamar Smith of Texas and put before the House Judiciary Committee on October 26, 2011. Ostensibly, the bill exists to protect the United States and its citizens from unscrupulous foreign sites intent on distributing copyrighted materials and selling counterfeit prescription drugs. Even the name of the bill is misleading; implying that those who oppose the bill, support online piracy.

Not surprisingly, the outcry from the technical community has been immediate. Long-time rivals such as Google and Facebookhave joined together in their protest of SOPA; journalists from a range of media types have also united to petition for the veto of this bill. The act has supporters and opponents on both sides of the political aisle; which is a little disconcerting given the fact that by its own admission, very few members of congress posses even a basic understanding of how the internet works.

As one blogger put it, watching the House Representatives stumble over technical terms would be hilarious if there wasn’t so much at stake. It’s unusual for a bill to have made it in front of the House so quickly; a clear indicator that there is substantial revenue as stake for someone. It may surprise you to learn that someone is the entertainment industry. Then again, it may not.

Until recent years, most Americans lacked the technology to stream movies and other visual media on their computers; leaving the music industry to fight its own online copyright infringement battles. However, increased bandwidth and the popularity of cloud technology have made streaming videos easy. This doesn’t sit well with the entertainment industries who have been trying to halt playback technology since the VCR was released.

The House Committee heard from the Motion Picture Industry Association of America last month but has yet to call on a single internet construction expert. Surprising when you take into consideration what the bill is proposing. If passed, SOPA will allow any copyright owner on a ‘good faith’ basis to file a claim against a website if they believe their intellectual property is being wrongfully distributed. Once such a claim is filed, the respondent has a few days to make a rebuttal before legal proceedings begin. Liability extends beyond domain ownership; the containing server, search engines that include the domain in the SERP, even companies marketing for the domain are all subject to penalties, should the bill be voted into law. Additionally, internet service providers will be required to change the information for the site in the net’s system; making it impossible for users to find.

A paper which was co-signed by some of the nation’s most knowledgeable internet security experts advised that falsifying domain information would pose an exaggerated and unnecessary threat to security. Interestingly, none of the co-signers have been asked to appear before the house. Congress states that they will resume SOPA discussions on Wednesday, December 21.

Censorship in America

Before retiring from Apple, the late Steve Jobs created a mobile advertising program called iAd. The program was greeted less than enthusiastically by advertisers. This was for a number of reasons. For starters, Apple was heavily involved in the creative process; an involvement that many companies seeking ad space found restricting. In addition to that, the cost of advertising through iAd was exorbitant: one million dollars. And there is also the fact that the ads will only run on Apple devices.

As estimates for this past year’s ad revenue are generated, it’s become clear that Apple is trailing Google pretty steeply in the mobile ad market. Apple found that despite having its own mobile ad service, developers were still flocking to the Android market. There are a few companies who braved the million dollar price tag and have utilized iAd. Unilever has reported great success with the service and states that their ads are garnering more clicks through and better interaction than in other markets; while they did not discuss exact pricing, Unilever did say that they intended to renew their contract.

In a move outside their norm, it seems that Apple is attempting to compromise. They have come down (significantly) on the cost to companies wishing to advertise with their service. From one million to $500,000, for starters. They have also lowered their cost-per-click; ten dollars for every one thousand views; two dollars for every click through. Google charges anywhere from four dollars to twelve dollars per thousand views, varying contingent on the use of mobile video or advanced targeting.

In another unusual move for the company, Apple recently invited senior marketing executives from some of the world’s largest corporations for a tour of their headquarters. The execs were shown around campus and then engaged in several informative sessions headed by Apple’s product and designer teams.

It remains to be seen whether these compromises on the part of Apple will boost the success of their iAd service. They certainly seem to be on the right track; offering greater transparency, more competitive pricing and giving companies more freedom in regards to their ad designs. But will this be enough to out-sell the Google Android market? We’ll see.

When Google+ opened their doors for business pages, some really neat new features started popping up on the Google landscape. There was some initial consternation regarding the verification of these new business pages; many companies were alarmed to discover that they could claim their page and were not required to go through any verification process. They feared the ease of simply creating a page would motivate unscrupulous parties to falsely claim others’ brands as their own and potentially create bad-press for their company.

Fortunately, it was not long before Google began to make available a badge that a business owner could put on their own site; linking back to their Google+ page and telling Google that the page truly belonged to the business claiming it. Similar to Google Analytics Webmaster Tools Verification Tag, imbedding the Google+ tag communicates to Google that the owner of your brand’s web page is the same person who created your Google+ Business page.

With the announcement that businesses were now welcome to claim their pages, Google introduced a new feature called Direct Connect. When a user types the name of a verified brand preceded by a plus-sign, they are taken directly to the brand’s Google+ page rather than the SERP. This newly introduced factor is still novel and therefore fun, but there is a growing population of search industry experts who remain pretty skeptical of its actual usefulness.

For starters, people utilizing this new tool will be taken to a page owned by Google, not one owned by the company for which they’re searching. Let’s weigh the pros and cons of a brand being approved for Direct Connect. On the pro side, having a verified Google+ page for your brand should help its status on the SERP. On the other hand, your site will lose traffic as your customers are taken directly to your page on Google’s privately-owned site.

The serviceability of Direct Connect can also depend significantly on your own marketplace. If your business is in an arena where there is high competition, it may behoove you to have your customers taken directly to your Google+ page and sidestep the SERP which contains links to your competitors. Similarly, if your business has bad reviews or other negative information on the SERP, it would be clearly beneficial to have a way for your customers to bypass that.

Google’s Direct Connect may be a fun new way to search, but there is at least one major casualty. The plus operator has been a command for search engines since their advent; before Google even existed. It was a way for users to tell the search engine that they want their query searched verbatim and not to bring up any results that didn’t contain the exact wording. Google has said the quotes that have been put around similarly queried phrases will now do the same thing as the plus operator when put around individual words; however, industry experts believe Google may have overstepped their bounds with this new technology.

It’s clear that the world of search is changing and Google is leading the way. Whether you like it or not.

Still spending your entire advertising budget on TV ads? Maybe Google’s most recent blog post will change your mind. Now that pre-roll ads are being shown with almost every view on YouTube, amounting to about 3 million views per day, Google set up a study to help figure out their roll in the advertising eco-system.
Google asked: Do traditional and new media ads complement each other? Which format drives recall most effectively? To answer those questions they measured brand recognition across six advertising campaigns by testing 15 and 30 second ads on YouTube alongside TV ads.
What Google found is that people who watched pre-roll ads on YouTube had a recall rate 1.5 times higher than people who watched ads from the same campaign on TV. The best recall results were achieved when YouTube ads and TV ads were used in conjunction; this created a recall rate 2 times higher than watching TV ads alone.
Either way you look at the results, it appears as though advertising on TV is not as effective as it once was. What makes the addition of video advertising online so much more effective? We use the mediums differently. A user can turn their TV on and it will run program after program without requiring any further interaction. We can clean, cook, take bathroom breaks and a variety of other distracting activities while ads are being broadcast to us. The viewing experience on YouTube is much different.
A user can navigate to YouTube’s homepage, but that won’t cause video to play. Users have to search for the videos they want to watch. Once a video is over, another one does not start automatically; users must manually select the next one.
By using pre-roll ads that fit the category of the video users choose to watch, ads are shown to a much more qualified audience (as compared to TV ads). YouTube has extensive targeting options that allow advertisers to select highly qualified audiences.
Age, gender and geographic targeting are a thing of the past. The most powerful way to target potential clients is through their interests. Placing ads on videos that fit the interests of your target audience helps your message reach a more engaged user.

The Superbowl may seem far off for fans, but for advertisers it’s already here. The NFL provides some of the very best opportunities for advertisers and it looks as though this year will be no different. Famed for the creativity and revenue that gets pumped into its thirty-second ad slots; the Superbowl showcases more than just a match-up of the season’s two best football teams. With one of the largest audiences of any program, the Superbowl affords businesses a much-coveted launch pad for new ad campaigns.

Not surprisingly, this year’s Superbowl will be dominated by beer and car ads. Anheuser-Busch, one of the leading suppliers of domestic beer, is rumored to have purchased three to four minutes of ad time. At roughly $3.5 million for a thirty-second spot, it’s clear that Anheuser-Busch will remain the largest sponsor of the event. Other companies who have purchased time range from Audi of America to Century 21. Incidentally, this will be the first year that Century 21 has purchased time during the Superbowl; it will be interesting to see what they do with it.

The usual heavy-hitters like Pepsi are expected to purchase a few spots as well. Frito Lay (a subsidiary of PepsiCo and the makers of Doritos) are once again running a contest for the public to create their own commercial for Doritos; the winner will be aired during the big game. This type of contest is becoming common for the snack chip producer and it’s easy to see why. Besides garnering increased interest among consumers for their brand, Frito Lay is saving themselves the trouble and expense of creating their own ad. This is a great example of how creative, interactive marketing can really pay off.

These large corporations pay dearly to have their products aired in front of millions of viewers for 30 seconds; their continued sponsorship says that the return is worth the investment. Combining wide exposure with a creative campaign is a great way to engage potential consumers and convert them into customers for life!

When Congress passed the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 1986, its intent was to create a law able to regulate those who hacked into government databases or other files. When the law was written, email was in its infancy and the advent of the internet as we know it was quite a ways off. The law made sense for the technology which existed at the time.

Unfortunately, the legal system is often slow to keep up with emerging technology and the CFAA is no exception. The 1986 lawmakers saw computer fraud as representing yourself to be someone you weren’t at the expense of government secrets and other information. Since that time, there have been several cases brought before the courts that have forced judges to interpret the CFAA in a way that makes it relevant to today’s technology; no easy task when you take into consideration the antiquity of the law’s terminology. The result has been a hodgepodge of conflicted rulings which have broadened the already loosely interpreted law.

There has been increasing pressure on congress to rewrite the statute; conflicting sides are demanding to either expand or limit its reach. As the law is written, it is a federal crime to violate a website’s Terms of Use. While this wording does effectively prosecute those large-scale criminals engaged in hacking and identify theft, it also applies to someone who may fib about their weight on a dating site or use a nickname on Facebook. Critics of the law claim that it is too far-reaching and violates citizens’ civil liberties.

It may be noted that while groups from both sides of the political isle have united to protest the validity of the CFAA, the Whitehouse is lobbying to have its scope expanded. Deputy Chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section at the Department of Justice, Richard Downing has argued that the scope of the CFAA should not be limited because it would hinder the government’s ability to prosecute hackers and other threats to national security. He then attempted to reassure the law’s critics by stating that users who lie about their names or any other information on social networking sites were not going to be targeted by law enforcement.

Orin Kerr, a former prosecutor for the DOJ and current law professor at George Washington University, spoke to the House in a committee hearing arguing for the complete overhaul of the CFAA. He stated:

“…[the] statute is breathtakingly broad, and its key terms are subject to a wide range of interpretation that can make it so broad as to render the statute unconstitutionally vague.”

It’s difficult to tell in which direction the CFAA’s scope will be advanced. There is a general consensus that further policing of the internet is necessary, but how to do that without encroaching on an individual’s civil liberties has yet to be determined. One thing is certain, while the government may be promising not to come after the nickname user on Facebook, the current wording of the CFAA gives them the right to do so.

An official announcement by Adobe last week confirmed what many industry experts have been predicting for some time: last call for Adobe Flash. Surprising as this may be for many, it’s fairly easy to see how Flash may have outlived its usefulness. What has truly sounded the death-knoll for Flash is the public’s shift to mobile internet usage. Predicted in April 2010 by Steve Jobs, Flash is just not compatible with the way people use their smart phones. It eats memory and battery life; it’s generally non-touch screen friendly. But what will replace it? Make way for HTML5! This new way of coding allows site administrators to do many of the things that Flash did, but without requiring users to download an outside program. It will likely be quite a few years before more sites are running on HTML5 than Flash; there are just too many sites currently running on Flash to expect things to shift more quickly. Also, while the majority of mobile devices utilize HTML5 for their graphics, the new code is not quite desktop ready. This has created an excellent opportunity for you, though! Start transitioning your site to HTML5 now and you’ll be ahead of the game!

Google has finally offered a competitive social platform for businesses! A business page on Google+ can have a wonderful impact on your site’s traffic. Unlike Facebook, which goes far toward creating brand awareness but does little to impact your business’s search engine results page (SERP) position, the fans you accumulate on Google+ are counted. With over one million unique visitors utilizing the Google search engine daily, we’re ready to put your company in the best position to advance from the large-scale marketing potential that corresponds with having a page on the world’s most frequently visited site. But don’t stop there! Your business will benefit most from capitalizing on many different types of internet marketing! For most companies, a multi-tiered approach to online advertising is the best way to get the most out of their page on a social networking site. Even corporate giants! When Ford wanted to increase the sales of their compact car, the Ford Focus, they realized that content worth sharing is paramount. So what did they come up with? Photos and videos featuring an orange puppet with an off-color sense of humor. As a direct result of users sharing their content, Ford passed 10,000 “likes” without spending more than a few percent of their budget on Facebook ads. Their efforts paid off; sales of their Ford Focus have surpassed past years. Maybe your company could use a creative boost, too!

Unlike the large, well-known brands who utilize social networking sites for a particular campaign, many smaller, start-up companies are building their business plans around the way people utilize these sites. There are opportunities available to today’s entrepreneurs that were inconceivable just a few years ago. From recommending a new restaurant to endorsing a product they’ve just purchased, people are communicating all kinds of things to their friends online that that they simply did not do before.

Is Facebook a Good Marketing Plan for Small Businesses?

Most notably, social networking sites like Facebook are giving start-up businesses a platform upon which to sell their services. It seems that many of these more successful services are platforms in themselves. For example, a business that allows users to market personal goods to other users is ideal for a forum like Facebook. People are more inclined to tell their friends about something neat on Facebook than they are in person. When someone reads a friend’s recommendation on a social networking site, they are more inclined to check it out. Particularly if they have a similar need (as in the example), to either sell or purchase. Once they have a good experience, they are more likely to share that with friends or family. When the business is one that provides users a chance to create their own commerce, a recommendation provides a double advantage.

Many businesses whose marketing relies heavily on word of mouth advertising are finding a rebirth through social networking sites; particularly those who had the forethought to include interactive elements in their social networking campaign. It seems that some things simply sell better on Facebook. When an established corporation promotes a new product on a social networking site, they’re trying to create a positive, familiar association for the public with that product. This is moderately successful in that users do become familiar with what said company is releasing on the marketplace, but this familiarity does not necessarily transform into increased sales. However, if a company has new services or merchandise constantly available (as in a reseller business), then Facbook “likes” really can turn into profit.

Social networking may be just the boost your company needs! Whether your goal is to find a good word-of-mouth platform or to increase your brand’s awareness; the social networks are a great tool. Don’t bury your head in the sand because you’re not the most internet savvy person out there; we’re ready to create and maintain your social networking campaign! Call us today!

An effective internet campaign does not grow over night. There are many factors at play and each needs careful cultivation. Like most things worth having, a successful online campaign takes time, money and a little patience. Both Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and organic SEO show a greater ROI as time goes by, but for different reasons.

How Does PPC Work?

Successful PPC campaigns require a good bit of research to really pay off. When bidding on a given keyword related to your business, an experienced PPC manager will analyze the keywords which are producing the most traffic to your site. Through careful tracking, they will be able to hone in on which words are producing the best leads and expand on them.  It’s equally important to filter out the keywords that do not directly pertain to your product or service, but are drawing traffic to your site nonetheless; those terms are called “negative keywords”.  The right PPC management team will allocate your investment with these factors in mind. Simply put, your business’s correctly managed PPC ads will gradually cost you less per click while increasing your conversion rate.

What Makes a Good SEO Campaign?

Achieving success with an organic SEO approach is also a gradual process. An experienced SEO source will first work to optimize your web site. Following research to define what keywords apply best, your site will be retooled for easy indexing by major search engines. It’s important to create excellent landing pages relative to the product or service particular to that page.  Once your site is ready to go, it will be promoted across the web through niche advertising, link-building and other proven methods of search engine optimization. As these changes take place and search engines such as Google begin to recognize the relevance and validity of your business’s site, your position on the search engine results page (SERP) will begin to improve.

A significant online presence has the potential to grow your business exponentially, but like Rome, that presence cannot be built in a day. Once your company is highly listed on the SERP and you’ve developed the right PPC campaign, you’ll need a continuing relationship with your implementation team to maintain it. Call us today get started today!