On February 10th, Facebook’s vice president of user growth, mobile and international, Chamath Palihapitiya made an announcement that Facebook has surpasses 100 million active mobile users worldwide.  This milestone is impressive considering just six months ago the social networked announced it had reached 65 million users on Facebook Mobile.

Palihapitiya stated, “Through this growth, we have continued to try to improve the experience of these mobile products.  We work with every major device manufacturer and many operators to ensure we provide the best possible mobile experience across thousands of different devices, mobile operating systems and carriers you rely on.”

The announcement continued and highlighted some of the recent mobile products Facebook has launched, citing the goal of offering value and user experience.  Below are the specific products mentioned:

Mobile Websites (m.facebook.com and touch.facebook.com) allow users to access Facebook from any mobile browser and in over seventy different languages.  Facebook claims that they want to be certain people have a great Facebook experience regardless of what mobile device they use and they acknowledge the necessity of keeping up with new devices so that Facebook scales to the different devices without issues.

Text messaging has also been a priority for Facebook.  They want users to be able to update and stay connected using SMS text messaging.  They launched a URL shortening service called FB.ME that makes it easier for people to share content.  This is especially useful for people using text messaging that have a limited number of characters you can use per message.

Applications are a top priority, as Facebook is already one of the most requested services on mobile devices.  Facebook currently works with every major device maker and mobile operating systems to bring applications and integrations that will ensure Facebook works with each platform.  Updates have been released recently for applications for Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia and Samsung.  Aside from these particular devices, Facebook also supports devices from HTC, INQ, LG Electronics, Palm, Sony Ericsson and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.

According to the report, “Facebook has already become a primary way for millions of people to stay connected and Facebook’s lead is likely to be extended as more consumers use increasingly powerful mobile devices (with photo/video plus high speed access) and the communications options on Facebook (like voice/video chat and other services) continue to rise.”

comSource data shows that the usage of social networking via cell phones is small, but growing.  In December 16% of mobile device users over the age of 13 had accessed a social network or blog.  In September that number was only 13%.

Despite the positive changes Facebook has made in regards to mobile applications, a quick look through the over 800 user comments to this article will show that while Facebook may be making huge strides in mobile user satisfaction, there is much left to be done.  Frequent layout changes have left users both confused and frustrated.  Despite this, Facebooks user numbers continue to soar both on mobile and non-mobile devices.

Last week, Google unveiled their new enterprise product- Google Commerce Search.

The way that this works for online retailers is that it enables them to set up their storefront, or to boost existing sales in a much better way by making it easier for the user to search for the goods they need. This is going to be a particularly helpful thing this holiday season for those who do offer products online- not so much services, but small to medium businesses that promote online will benefit quite alot.

Another feature that is very useful about this is the fact that you can actually track and optimize the search on this just like anything else, which benefits those using marketing strategy in their listings, but also makes it easier to see what is getting results for year round use. It seems to be set up for ease of customer use, not only offering synonyms for queries and searches, but also spelling suggestions and on the whole, a much faster means of finding the products they want.

From the site, once you have signed up for their search:
• Submit your product data to the Google Merchant Center and Google Product Search. Visit www.google.com/merchants to upload your items via data feeds, direct uploads, or use our API.

• Customize the look and feel of your on-site search engine. Log into the administrative console to manage product promotions, upload synonym dictionaries, and control parametric search options.

• Analyze your site’s traffic and search effectiveness. View custom reports on top queries, special feature usage and more.

And that’s that.
The whole things seems pretty straight forward and does offer this at a fairly inexpensive price, respectively, so it seems as though this may be something that you could use if you are offering products in your line of work. It is also boasting a much faster rate of conversion from visitor to buyer and shows potential for speed of set up. This does offer rather sound and hopeful projections and looks to be something that can really boost online retailer’s marketing in making it much easier for customers to search out products that they need, therefor eliminating alot of hassle. The list of customization options, add ons and benefits here is also impressive and this seems to be a great addition to your website to make the best use of it- enabling shoppers to quickly search through and then purchase exactly what they want, and improve your bottom line.

InBusiness SEO recently conducted a case study to assess the effectiveness of their tactics against other forms of internet marketing. In the latest installment, InBusiness decided to see how they match up against commonly accepted VooDoo internet marketing tactics. InBusiness created two Orlando  landscaping websites for a client that were nearly identical (Note: InBusiness did not use any destructive VooDoo tactics directly on their client’s website. Tactics that were used for the study were tested for semi-positive effectiveness prior to the comparison study).

InBusiness then conducted a two week study to compare the results of the two websites in Google Local Search. The first website received the InBusiness local SEO optimization package, and the second received what was presumed to be the standard rituals for top local rankings based on VooDoo research  done on Wikipedia (Note: There is only a relatively small chance that InBusiness may have conducted the VooDoo tactic s correctly. This is due mainly to the fact that the InBusiness researchers were too scared to hire a real VooDoo expert to perform the proper rituals for Google Local Optimization). For reference, the mentioned rituals required the sacrifice of two chickens, a necklace of frog legs, the escape key of a wireless keyboard, and a thumb drive with at least a 512 MB capacity.

InBusiness had no expectations of the results of the well controlled, scientifically-monitored case study. At the end of two weeks, the website receiving the InBusiness Local SEO Optimization ranked number one for the search term, “Orlando Landscaping”. In contrast, the VooDoo infused web site that received what was presumed to be the proper seo ritual for #1 rankings, did not fare as well. In fact, it is not even visible on Google.

When asked about the surprising results, InBusiness V.P. of Marketing David Wolf had this to say, “We could have never anticipated the strength of our results over the use of VooDoo. We are thrilled that InBusiness Local SEO Optimization was able to stand up to such a strong and seasoned competitor such as VooDoo internet marketing. Of course there is the small chance that we have no idea what we are doing, but rest assured, the VooDoo internet marketing Youtube video watched  by our staff was very clear in explaining how to complete the process.”

Note: No chickens or frogs were harmed during the InBusiness Local SEO Opimtization Vs. VooDoo case study. In reality, rubber chickens were used, and we substituted chicken wings for frog legs. That does not change the fact that InBusiness can get you top rankings for your local market. Call today at 407-284-1992

If you’re keeping up with all things SEO, you probably know that the competition between search engines can be fierce- and it appears to be getting even more so. This is great news for anyone who is using search engine optimization, good news for the customers and clients and makes for the whole thing to run in a much more interesting fashion as the two big names in search engines go head to head to see who can be the best. Google and Bing have been fighting it out for months, now, and there are a number of things going on that will benefit you, both as a business using online marketing, and as a customer or client surfing the web for information, products and services.

I believe I touched on the fact that both have released a Twitter integration, and how this also applies to Facebook, but also, recently Bing has released the Wolfram Alpha integration, which is actually a really useful tool in health management- not very useful in marketing, but, there is a reason I mention these things and I will get to that further into this blog. Bing also offers full page weather reports, and Facebook previews. As to Google, they’ve not been slacking in the options department, either with an update to SafeSearch that allows searchers to lock their level of safesearch, with a password to needed to change the setting. They have also made improvements to their movie listings, enabling genre filters and making the pages more inclusive. Both have seemingly competitive mapping applications and they both continue to work on spam busting and seem to be vying with eachother for that top search spot- making things so much better for those who use search engines.

But what does all of this have to do with online marketing? Quite a lot actually. With the competition between various search engines- not just these two, the search engines continue to improve upon themselves- making them much more valuable to the user, the client, and the customer. So, the appeal of the search engines goes up- meaning, the need for online marketing is greater because, you want that broader exposure and you can certainly benefit from the changes with the search engine wars because of that. Understanding that the improvements in the search engines means more potential customers, clients and the like looking through search results is a pretty simple concept. If you want to reach more people, and a broader demographic- you go to where those people are congregating. If you’re using online marketing and search engine optimization tactics, well, you’re going to all those places and more.

Yes, we made the word up. Yes it should be a real word. Firstly, because it is an awesome sounding word. More importantly, it is an issue that can destroy your productivity when using the computer. As internet marketers we constantly have several screens open as we switch back and forth between tools and websites. Having the habit of opening to many windows can spread your attention so thin that you end up getting nothing done except for bouncing between tabs, or windows.

Tip For Increased Productivity: Limit the number of windows, programs, and tabs that you have open at any one time. It will force you to focus on one task, and not get side tracked. Focus management is one of the most important factors in productivity when using the computer. It can be so easy to get side tracked by an incoming email or instant message. It is best to ignore most of these until set times of the day as if you are in a meeting. Obviously there are certain interruptions that you will have to deal with no matter what. Eliminating the distractions within your control is one of the best things you can do. The good news is that it gets easier the longer you have been doing it. Don’t let Pluradefenstrosis get the best of you. Feel free to digg this. Dan in the office would be elated if the word he coined led to a few nodes from the community.

A study done by America Online and Salary.com suggested that U.S. employees waste an average of 2 hours a day when at work. The study states that the average salary of the 132 million Americans working (not counting farms)  at the time of the study had a salary of  $39,795 per year – or $19.13 per hour.  InBusiness asked 50 close colleagues from a variety of industries and professions how much time they would estimate they had wasted in the last several weeks reading, twitter, blogging, watching, and talking about the Tiger Woods scandal. The numbers are simply shocking when you consider the impact on an economy wide  scale. Our survey stated that on average, the participants had spent approx. An hour and a half keeping up with Tiger and his harem. This is in addition to the estimated 2 hours per day the average american spends on time wasting activities such as the old favorite fantasy football while at work. So what was Tigers total tally on American businesses? Tiger may have one the best golf swings of all time, but he would have to keep swinging for over a century at his current winning rate to make up for the 3.8 billion dollars his cell phone message heard round the office cost American business.

So what  can businesses and employees learn from and event that will undoubtedly become as synonymous with cheating spouses as Google is with searching? It is important to train employees strong time management and productivity habits in advance so that distractions such as a Tigers don’t have a dramatic effect on productivity.  Often large events such as this are the adult equivalent of a snow day. Humans have a strong herding instinct thanks to evolution. When an event like the Tiger Woods incident comes along, it acts like a boiling point where people assume that everyone else is going to waste time talking about it, so they assume they can too. It becomes a forgone conclusion.  The best way to avoid these types of time waste, which some would argue serve the purpose of building office culture, is to instill proper time management protocols in your workforce from the beginning.

As an internet marketing specialist I spend a lot of time with distractions in my face. I am constantly searching in Google, through blogs, and Facebook to run marketing campaigns for our clients. It is incredibly easy to get distracted. How do I do it? I set finite rules that I do not allow myself to break. I limit myself to no more than 3 browsing windows or tabs at a time (I used to have over 10 open). A normal user should limit themselves to no more than 1 or 2. I right the next 10 tasks that I have to accomplish on a white board and systematically accomplish them one at a time. I am not allowed to work on anything else until I have accomplished the task at hand. It is to easy to distract yourself in this day and age. Even a trip to the coffee pot can waste as much as 15 minutes when you account for how long it will take you to get going again. The day I mastered working on only one thing at a time was they day I increased productivity on a per hour basis by over 50%.  It really is amazing what you can do when you focus.

Yahoo and Microsoft finally closed the search deal that has been sort of being back and forth for months, now. Both companies released the following statement:

“Microsoft and Yahoo! believe that this deal will create a sustainable and more compelling alternative in search that can provide consumers, advertisers and publishers real choice, better value, and more innovation.

“Yahoo! and Microsoft welcome the broad support the deal has received from key players in the advertising industry and remain hopeful that the closing of the transaction can occur in early 2010.”

What does this mean for Yahoo and Microsoft?

Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites also, Yahoo! will keep using its technology and data in other areas of its business such as being able to enhance display advertising technology. Additionally, Microsoft will also obtain an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technology, and Microsoft will be able to use Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms. There is a bit more to it than that, but it does seem that the merger is going to be a beneficial thing for both companies and the stakes are upped yet again in the search engine optimization world. It’s pretty interesting to watch all of this unfold, and to also keep seeing the various improvements in search, user friendliness that these companies all bring to the table in an effort on each one’s part to win the search engine wars and gain that coveted “top search” title. As they do so I imagine more and more users will rely more heavily on searches than they already are- which is of great benefit to anyone utilizing search engine optimization for their on line marketing needs.

Keeping an eye on the search engine wars, and the developments there shows us that not only are the users getting more for searching, but that there is going to be an increase in the exposure that a business using search engine optimization can obtain through a decent program. And it seems like every week, there is another change, another incentive to search being brought out by one or all of the search engines, so the platform for exposure grows.

When you consider some of the improvements that Yahoo! itself had already made to mobile marketing and their own platforms, and the improvements that Bing continues to show- this is all coming together for a much rounder, more enhanced way to search and do business on line. As more and more users begin to depend on both desktop searches and mobile searches, it does seem that the importance of search engine optimization in marketing is going to steadily increase, bringing about a stronger surge in marketing for anyone who happens to be using the tools at their disposal in an effective manner.

Christmas time is approaching fast and along with the upcoming holiday season one must expect the good ol’ radio station playlist switch. All of a sudden after the Thanksgiving Turducken, your musical radio life turns into a wintery wonderland. However, the inside of your car is no different from the halls of the office. For the next month, your co-workers will be humming, singing, whistling, and tapping Christmas songs.

As it turns out, weat the InBusiness office are no different and what better song to sing than Frosty the Snowman. Good ol’ Frosty. As this song was sung in the office today, I couldn’t help but hum the tune in my head, but on this day one particular verse got me thinking…

“In the meadow we can build a snowman,
then pretend that he is Parson Brown.
He’ll say ‘Are You Married?’
We’ll say ‘No man, but you can do the job when you’re in town!”

After hearing this, I wondered to myself, “Who the heck is Parson Brown?” A fresh browser and a google page and exactly 0.25 seconds later, I found my answer. So here is your Christmas factoid of t

he day. Enjoy. If you need anything else, InBusiness has the answers (shameless plug, ha).

Being that a Floridian orange grower was the only well-known person by the name of “Parson Brown” at the time the song was composed, one can assume that “Parson” is used as a title, instead of a first name. In the period when this song was written, parsons (now known as a Protestant minister) often travelled among small rural towns to perform wedding ceremonies for denominational followers who did not have a local minister of their faith. Therefore, the children are most likely pretending that their snowman is a Parson with the surname “Brown,” which would be visiting the town again in the future.

Source(s):

http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Parson_brow…

If you keep your ears to the wire, you know that BLI Messaging won the Future Innovators award at the DMA show in San Diego, CA. The company, which is a business to business provider in voice, fax, SMS text messaging solutions and broadcast email took away the first ever award for their innovations and impact on the industry as a whole. The award is meant to recognize the achievements and accomplishments of unique ideas that created a broad range benefit and the judging panel deemed that BLI Messaging had definitely brought to the table a better way of doing things for not only the user, but the marketing community as a whole.

The award was won due to a new design in the company’s existing Weblaunch platform- the newest release offers up something known as a multi channel trigger, which enables automation of follow up messages across numerous channels, based on the activity or inactivity of the clients that utilize the service. Weblaunch itself being an already useful tool- an online portal that enables the client to launch survey, faxes, SMS, voice and email campaigns. Now, with the click of a link a user can trigger a phone call, an SMS text or an email direct.

BLI Messaging already is known for serving over 4,000 customers, many very large and very well known firms and clients.  They got their start 20 years ago as a broadcast fax company and as time changed, kept up with the latest trends in technology and marketing as well as creating a platform in addition to accompanying services such dealing with landing pages and web design. So, in creating these new multi channel triggers, many have said that they have set the bar pretty high in the feild of marketing and have certainly created quite a stir with a very functional, easy to use system that brings many options for existing campaigns and broadens the scope a bit.

“We are thrilled to win this prestigious new award from the Direct Marketing
Association. It is terrific to be recognized for our commitment to pushing the
envelope in building marketing automation and messaging solutions. Now we are
taking it to the next level and developing a closed loop program that unites
web analytics with email marketing for intelligent response based marketing
and true ROI calculations,” said Dave Baeder, President of BLI Messaging.

So what do you think? Do you feel that your company is doing all that it can to remain on the cutting edge, or do you find yourself sort of stymied and stuck in a few areas? Being able to keep yourself abreast of the current trends and changes that we’re seeing come to light in many different aspects of marketing is important, but just how important is it? For BLI Messaging, it seems to be the order of the day and business as usual. Is it for you?