Veveo has taken the Web by storm. I know how “video” should be spelled, but I am talking about something else.

Veveo Inc. is a company that has just beta-launched its video searching vTap. This is a free service and is designed to enhance user experience on broadband enabled phones. The company claims that it has huge listings of Web videos — much more than any other video portal.

As everyone knows, although the latest smart phones come with big screens and have the capability of bringing video to life, finding a video that plays in a format compatible with the smart phone is a tough task, and most people give up because of the effort and time involved.

The main advantage of vTap lies in its ability to find videos even using phones and TVs. Although the videos on vTap are from several different sites and these online videos are in various formats that do not play on phones, Veveo converts the original video format into a format that can stream and play on a user’s particular phone.

This application is said to work on Windows Mobile, Nokia N-series, and many different handsets from manufacturers such as Sanyo, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG, and Samsung. The fact that they also have a version that works on the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch makes it very appealing to the younger generation. Read the rest of this entry »

Online maps are extremely popular and millions of people use them every day to either find local businesses, to obtain driving directions, to see high-definition aerial images of places or even to check real-time traffic information.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL compete with each other to improve their online mapping services, which have become an important part of local search websites.

Google is the unbeaten leader in web computing software delivered over the internet and literally runs inside a browser. However, many browser applications cannot do all those things that the powerful PC-based software can. Google has been trying to close that gap and finally achieved the fruits of its efforts.

Google said that third party developers can now use the programming interfaces to Google Earth, which is their 3-D visualization software. This will enable developers to embed Google Earth on websites.

Google Maps is currently being used by thousands of websites that have created applications, to be able to do various things like pointing the place where a crime has taken place or showing the various apartment rentals in various cities and even showing the path of airplanes in flight. These sites will now be able to improve on those applications with better visualization software from Google Earth. Developers will also be able to make use of Google Earth’s 3-D imaging, to create new applications to run on their sites. These applications will be embedded in the websites and will be accessible through a browser, and they will work even if users have not installed Google Earth on their computers. Read the rest of this entry »

With more and more websites allowing user comments and cloaking the users’ identities with the excuse of catering to the “free speech online” concept, malicious gossip is freely posted by negative elements who are secure in the knowledge that they are safe in their anonymity.

Previously, there used to be a few sites that allowed user comments, such as AOL and Yahoo! The advantage they had was that, when someone subpoenaed the website host, they could get the person’s home address and full name. But that is not the case anymore. Now, most of these websites that allow comments either wipe them out or do not store the details necessary to track down visitors to their sites.

Several users suffer due to this, as malicious posts about them do the rounds which give their full name, attacking their integrity in several ways, such as calling them anorexic, a homosexual, or that they have sexual diseases etc. These things just cannot be shrugged off as this has an enormous effect on the reputation and the mental state of being of the person concerned.

There are very few legal means to compel websites to police message boards. The Communications Decency Act of 1996, has protected these websites from suits concerning user comments for many years now. Their stand is that such sites are similar to public parks and are not considered publications.

According to some lawmakers, these protections are too broad and they are now asking for changes in the law in order to address this growing problem. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are looking to start an internet business, the first thing that has to be done is choosing a niche market. We know there is plenty of competition out there for every niche. But not everybody offers the same as you do.

The first thing that has to be done is to get a good idea on whether to pursue a niche market or not. This entails keyword research, which includes coming up with keywords that people are searching for and finding out how much competition there is for that particular keyword.

Initially, it is no good going for generic keywords that have a lot of competition. For example, if you type “Golf,” it is a generic term with millions of sites. If you target your keywords better, such as “Golf balls” or “Travel Golf,” you will find less number of searches but you are aiming at a particular audience in the niche. Remember! It is always better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.

After you have chosen your niche, choose a few more keywords specific to your niche. Now time to check on your competition. What are the keywords and phrases they are using? Right click on “view source” and look at the META description tag (you will find it at the top.) Are these keyphrases helpful to you? Narrow down your list. Search on Google with the keyphrases you are planning on using and see if any similar sites are coming up. If they are, you are on the right track. Some of these keyphrases will be used on your site in the content and some will be used as links.

To do well with your website, it is important to be high up in the search engine rankings. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. How many times have you gone to the 3rd page of Google search results when looking for something? Most people click on the first few results only. Read the rest of this entry »

As an internet marketer, the first thing one has to do is look for a good domain name to register. Domain names are the real estate of online business. They are the cornerstones of a good internet business. It is really not a difficult task finding a domain name. There are several places online where a search can be done to check if a domain name is available. You must be wondering, if it was such a simple thing, why all the hue and cry about domain names.

That is because, it is a tough task deciding on the kind of domain name that catches people’s attention.

There are a couple of ways to go about this. One is using the keyword method and the other is branding.

The keyword method involves keyword research, where one searches for a domain name that is rich in keywords, on the niche that is being targeted. They say that Google loves keyword rich domains.

For example, if you are planning on setting up a website on weight loss, the first keyword rich name that comes to mind is obviously something like weightloss.com, which would obviously be taken already. So, you will need to search for other keywords in the same niche. Read the rest of this entry »

Social Media though an emerging term in the Internet Marketing circles, has grown its roots deep in the concepts of Search Engine Marketing and Optimization, and Web 2.0 standards, and is evolving with Web 3.0. To understand the core concept of Social Media and its optimization, it’s crucial to identify and analyze its connections with SEM/SEO, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. The evolving needs of web users and alterations in search functionalities demand equal upgrades in SEO/SEM strategies, and as user is the main focus, there’s an ultimate need of full duplex communication between a business and the end user. On the other hand, Web 2.0 as it provides a platform for the execution of high end functional applications sets a base line for social media to grow and evolve. Further, as Web 3.0 is all about enhancing your online presence and the business are rapidly getting online, so they need to have a direct access to the end users.

Though the www represents itself as an example of global village, but the whole system cannot work in isolation, i.e. standalone websites, and thus it needs transformation of ideas and experiences into a platform. The platform that best meets the requirements of contemporary times is Social Media. And this origin of Social Media defines it as a platform integrating technology and social interaction in order to bring innovative solutions through user experience with less response time. But this integration and interaction do not result as innovation if the optimization factor is absent, i.e. if website is not visible to the targeted user, or the user is unaware of it in any way. This creates the need of Social Media Optimization, but what actually it is?
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Social Media Marketing, being an emerging concept is still undiscovered for most of the individuals associated with web business and having most of the aspects unexplored, the sustainability of SMM is still a question mark. Though getting about rapidly, not everyone is familiar with the inner structure of SMM and the best use of it. The present culture of Social Media Marketing is relying more on extensive stumbling and digging etc that has not only shown the concept of SMM a convergent approach but also deployed its original essence.

Social Media Marketing is a divergent phenomenon, whereby the strategies are based on choices and preferences, tastes, variations and innovations, and something that supports a constant variation in procedures is always sustainable. But the present digging/stumbling culture and paid opinions may reel back the sustainability to the ninth degree. The true SMM culture can, however, be established only by having the inside picture of it, i.e. understanding the situation and nature of business and knowing that the variation will need equal change in strategies, outlining the short and long term objectives, and then using the appropriate social media tools in accordance with the research.

Whatever the situations are, marketers must know that:

1. He’s to think like a user not provider, as SMM is volatile in nature and knowing what audience likes is the key to success.
2. He’s to build relations based on trust because in Social Media that is open for all, the vulnerability to unethical practices is relatively high.
3. It needs parallel time to research and analyze the audience and to build an effective network.
4. It’s a learning process and you find something new each time you develop or execute a single strategy.
5. Knowingly relaying false information may let you get a single step ahead but the long run will be a dead end.
6. Since the SMM model works on choices, preferences, attitudes, tastes and style, no such thing can get about that’s not sought for.
7. It’s your identity that works more than you, so making best use of it is the way to leave imprints in all possible and related area of influence.
8. If you want others to abide by certain rules, be a live example.

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Really Simply Syndication, or RSS, feeds are an easy way to bulk up your website content or actively promote your website material on other sites. With RSS, content is delivered through a feed to another website, email or web browser. RSS can deliver any number of content offerings from your site including promotional material, articles, new blog posts, or alerts readers or other sites. The use of RSS feeds has expanded dramatically in the last decade and has become instrumental in syndicating content.

RSS is especially useful to pull feeds into your website. This bulks up your site with content offerings and article titles from other related sites. RSS can also be used to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) as it makes your site more visible to search engines and generates traffic and incoming links. Finally RSS can be a connection between you and your customers letting them know when new material is offered through your website.

To use RSS feeds, consider the following:

• Plan the content the RSS will contain. A RSS feed can contain many forms of content. The feed can publicize articles or blog posts, product reviews, press releases, announcements or any combination of the above. The contents of your feed should be interesting to readers, and centralized to retain the interest of your initial audience. The more specific and interesting your feed, the more likely it will be picked up by other sites or individuals. Read the rest of this entry »

There are many different markup languages for webmasters to choose from these days. All have their own standards dictated by an organization known as W3C. In this article we are going to look at four of the most common markup languages and their standards. The markup languages that will be covered in this article are HTML, XHTML, XML, and CSS.

HTML:

Intro:

In the first section of this article, we will look at HTML. HTML is the oldest of the four languages and stands for Hypertext Markup Language. Its main purpose is to structure a web document by denoting sections of the document with certain tags. In HTML, there is usually a header section, which contains the title and description as well as some META tags for search engine spidering purposes. Next there is a body tag which contains the main content of your document. Paragraphs, descriptions, and pictures would usually go in this section. Last of all, there is a footer to an HTML document. This is usually there additional links or any additional information that does not belong in the body go.

History:

Although HTML has been expanded and changed since its initial creation, it was originally created by physicist Tim Berners Lee in 1980 while he was working as an independent contractor for CERN. Since the world wide web at that time was mainly a way for scientists to share research data, HTML did not gain much notice until the end of the 80s and into the 90s. It was not until 1990 that the World Wide Web (W3) was proposed and accepted by CERN. The year 1991 marked the first year where an HTML standard was made public. This early version of HTML had relatively few tags(some which are still available today), such as the basic “href” link tag and the “img src” image tag that could be used to define parts of a webpage and where certain elements could be inserted into an HTML document. HTML continued to improve and expand throughout the 1990s. People began to take more and more notice of HTML standards as the World Wide Web gained popularity among the masses. HTML specifications have since 1996 been maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium(W3C). In 2000, HTML standards became international and spread across the globe. The latest version of HTML that is widely accepted is 4.01.

Advantages and Disadvantages:

There are two flavors of HTML standards, strict and transitional. The difference between them is that transitional is much more of a loose standard and ignores many things that strict would consider errors or warnings. Transitional is widely accepted and is favored among most webmasters and designers as it allows for more elements in the document than strict. The advantage that HTML has over other standards is that it is the easiest to follow and one that most webmasters should be familiar with. HTML knowledge is generally considered a requirement to build any kind of website, no matter how complex or simple. The disadvantage of HTML is that by itself it is quite limited is what it can do. It does not provide the variety of descriptive tags and elements that something like XHTML or XML can provide. While beginners may be content with HTML, more advanced designers will want to learn other markup languages and standards. Read the rest of this entry »

Custom web design is pricey yet desirable. A website designed from scratch especially for your online purposes is the ideal for many webmasters. What many fail to realize however, is that there is a much better solution to customized site design. Using a web template can generate a tremendous amount of savings and still be customized to suit your specific needs.

Custom Web Design
A quality web designer is highly skilled and knows that his services are worth a great deal. His rate can be very high for custom work, which is a deterrent for many starting new websites. He might also be unreliable. Many designers are pulled in many directions; they have their own websites to build as well as client work.

You pay a high price for a designer that may be hard to speak to when you are ready for a status check or have questions. In addition, the final product does not always meet your expectations. It can be extremely difficult to explain to another person your vision of colors, fonts and layouts. In today’s global marketplace, the difficulty of explaining your ideal design is complicated further by language barriers. The finished product, once it meets your expectations, will cost plenty of time, frustration and dollars. Read the rest of this entry »