Well in the book you will find all kind of knowledge and the guidelines regarding the writing styles that are prevailing in the present day world and are usually adopted by big online content writers. From the content page, it is understood that the book is all about the basic standards of writing styles and guidelines used in for web.

In the book, yahoo has recommended some points about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). They have stressed on the importance of keyword research in order to know the volume of the traffic on the web and with regard to this, they have advised :

• “Search engines, to understand what the subject of a page is, look for keywords throughout that page, including at the top (the introduction) and the bottom (the conclusion). But don’t just shove keywords into the top or the bottom of your page distribute them evenly throughout.”
• “To a search engine, good writing means using variations of your keywords, including those with different endings.”
• “Like a muffin with the right amount of blueberries, it [the page] should have juicy keywords distributed evenly throughout, but not so many that they overwhelm the whole.”
• “Strategically seed your copy with keywords”

Despite having so many features, experts have said that the book contains no such feature that could make it distinguished or unique in itself. Because there number of books and manuals available that have proved better in the past times and are followed even today. So to what extent,Yahoo’s style guide would serve the needy people is still uncertain.

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An emailed sales pitch from a sales rep from Quattro (a mobile ad network recently purchased by Apple) obtained by TechCrunch refers to a “new program launching this month called ViP (Verification of iTunes Purchase)”. The programs ties iPhone and iPad ads in apps directly to your purchasing data from iTunes where than can learn, among other things, the conversion rate of ad impressions to downloads via a “proprietary direct link from the ad to App Store”.

Using personal data to refine how ads are delivered is not new, and right now iAds VIP is designed to help developers sell more apps. But any ad program that offers “a proprietary direct link” direct to your iTune’s purchase data has huge implications for both fans and music marketers.

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The North American search engine marketing industry is expected to reach $16.6 billion by the end of the year. This will represent growth of over 13% from 2009 – which was about $14.6 billion.

And there’s no prizes for guessing who the dominant search engine is. Google of course, and by quite a significant margin.

Image Courtesy – Search Engine Land 2010

According to the 1500 agencies and marketers surveyed, 97% currently advertising on Google (71% in Google’s search network) – with only 50% using Yahoo! and 44% advertising on Bing.

SEO vs PPC?

It seems the proportion of businesses who include SEO in the marketing mix has remained relatively unchanged at 90% (which reinforces the perceived value of SEO in the search marketing mix) – but PPC has continued to grow – reaching 81%.

And in the coming year – budgets are on the increase across the board. SEO expenditure is set to grow 43% and PPC will increase by 37%.

Social Media

It seems that while Social media usage and marketing appears to be on the increase – it hasn’t been reflected in budgets up to this point – with 23% saying the social media marketing budget was zero.

But 2010 will see this change. 59% of respondents are set to increase their social media marketing budgets – and for many – that will mean their first formal investment in the space.

All in all – it’s encouraging to see how consistently search engine marketing performed over the global crisis and how it looks to be bouncing back even further as industry confidence grows.

I would hasten to say that traditional media and marketing reports are significantly less optimistic.

What’s your plans for 2010?

• Will you be increasing or decreasing SEO and/or PPC spend?
• What about Social media? Do you already invest in SMM or do you plan to?

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What about paywalls on the local level though? How will more localized papers fare when it comes to asking people who do not subscribe to the publication to pay to see the content online? If the results at New York Newsday are any indication its not a pretty picture.
Crain’s New York Business tells us just how bad it is

Here is one paid model for online journalism that isn’t exactly setting the world on fire: Nearly three months after Newsday put its Web site behind a pay wall, Newsday.com has attracted only 35 subscribers.

In addition, traffic to the Long Island daily’s site has dropped by half, according to Nielsen.

Newsday is the local paper for all of Long Island and a good portion of the NYC borough of Queens. Not exactly a small place. In other words, if there are this many people in the area and there are only 35 of them in three months willing to fork out a few bucks a week to access the information online this has to be viewed as a failure. Here’s what readers who do not subscribe elsewhere see when they try to get information from the website

To be fair it’s not like only 35 people read the online content for the paper since the content is literally available to a large portion of the population.

Newsday.com can be accessed free by the paper’s home subscribers, as well as by Cablevision customers and subscribers to the cable operator’s Optimum Online broadband service.

According to the paper, that means about 75% of Long Island households just have to register to have access. Anyone else who wants to read the paper online has to pay $5 per week.

Still, the number of online subscribers shocked members of Newsday’s union—Local 406 of the Graphic Communications Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters—which is in a bitter fight with the paper’s management over a proposed contract offer that would cut pay by 10%.

What this outcome may be telling the industry is that paywalls may very well limit the reach of your publication. Long Island is of particular interest considering just how many people have relocated from the area to parts all around the country. Now, if these people want to keep up with current events from ‘home’ they would have to pay and it looks like those folks are saying to Newsday “Forgetta about it!”.

So if this tactic isn’t working to generate more revenue what is the point of doing it? Maybe Newsday doesn’t want to be one of the first major local newspapers to try this and then be one of the first to drop it all in the span of a few short months.

Whatever the reasons this experiment looks to be a huge bust thus far. Not exactly the success story you parade out to other publications considering the same tactic. So what do you think? Will local publications be able to enact a paywall and have success or is this just a desperate move by an industry that decided to change as a means of survival rather than doing it as part of their ongoing business plan to move into the future?

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As we talk about often it’s not even that Google is on top anymore. That’s a given. In fact, its dominance is what makes the uninformed cry monopoly. Once again market dominance doesn’t mean it’s the only game in town. People just like it better and use it more.

What is interesting is the drop in share of the next three biggest players. Google is up one percent but all three of the others are down 4%. There is no search ‘cannibalism” going on here where they are feeding off each other. Are people looking for other search options other than Yahoo, bing and Ask that are not named Google?

While this is always interesting it is certainly getting a bit mundane. I would love to see true competition for Google if only to stop the silly talk about Google’s dominance restricting others’ opportunity. I just don’t see it happening. Do you?

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You know the one. They play it a lot at NC State football games?

C’mon, you know it. “Boom, here comes the boom….”

No?

Forget it! I’ll Google it instead!

Yes, that’s it!

And, pretty soon, you’ll never have problems finding a song, artist, or album again–thanks to a new “Discover Music” onebox from Google.

Maybe you remember only the chorus — or maybe you remember who sang it, but you forgot the exact name of the song. If you’ve ever heard a catchy song in a car or cafe, but just can’t figure out the name of the song, you’ll know what I’m talking about. This search feature also helps you find many of those songs by entering a search containing a line or two of lyrics.

Cool, huh? Google has partnered with MySpace and Lala to source the results and Pandora, imeem, and Rhapsody are standing by to help you discover music related to your query. Not only does the Onebox show the result, but you can click the play button to activate the pop-up–and play the song!

**Time out! Google is allowing pop-ups now? That’s the topic for a another blog post!**

If you’re not seeing the results yet, Google has launched a music search site you can try out.

The only thing missing? Maybe a partnership with Shazam, so I can play music to Google and have it recognize it–without me knowing anything about the song. That would be cool!

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As further evidence that Armstrong is trying to get the right people on the bus he has hired Brad Garlinghouse to head up the Internet and Mobile Communications operations of AOL’s business. According to Om Malik of GigaOm, Garlinghouse will have some pretty serious responsibilities especially when one considers that this is the once might AOL being talked about here.

Brad Garlinghouse, formerly a senior vice president at Yahoo, is joining AOL as its president of Internet and Mobile Communications, which includes AOL’s e-mail and instant messaging. He will be heading up AOL’s Silicon Valley operations in Mountain View and will be responsible for AOL Ventures in California.

It doesn’t take much to connect the dots regarding Garlinghouse’s responsibilities to see that acquisition will be part of this plan to move AOL back into the realm of relevance. Garlinghouse certainly has the pedigree including his now famous “Peanut Butter Manifesto” that hit the Wall Street Journal back in 2006 which revealed some of the ills that still impact Yahoo’s business today.

Garlinghouse pointed out that with the growing popularity of services such as Twitter and Facebook, the entire communications arena is ripe for disruption. AOL has an opportunity to capitalize on that disruption. The company is going to either partner with or acquire startups in order to make over its communications business and capitalize on this disruption, he said.

Garlinghouse’s past also includes working at Internet telephony start-up DialPad which eventually produced the founders of Grand Central. Grand Central is now more well known as Google Voice.

So the Internet space keeps looking more and more like the sports world in my opinion. There are some teams / companies that can afford to sign the high dollar, high profile players / employees. It makes for interesting reading and a lot of press recognition but the results will have to speak for the success or failure of the venture. All one needs to do is look at how many times a sports team has spent a fortune to have the names on the roster but produce more frustration than wins (note of transparency here: I am a New York Mets fan so I know what I am talking about here).

Hopefully, AOL does bounce back and create a more competitive environment to keep the other big guys in the Internet space on their toes. If it doesn’t then the investors will decide whether AOL has an extended time to live or just more time to make headlines.

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In 2007-2008, many brands and companies flocked to Second Life to build a virtual presence, which spiked, peaked, and created somewhat of a backlash and ultimately a bit of a retreat in the process. By mid-2009, virtual worlds were realizing a comeback of sorts. In July 2009, virtual worlds consultancy kzero.co.uk reported that membership of virtual worlds grew by 39% in the second quarter of 2009 to an estimated 579 million. World of Warcraft, Entropia Universe, Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin and Second Life are respectively posting profits powered by those who were intent on getting a “second” life.

According to the study, it is the youth demographic that drove the bulk of the 39% growth. Kzero reported that poptropica.com, which targets 5 to 10-year-olds, boasts over 76 million registered users. As the ages increase, so do the numbers of users. For example in the range of 10 to 15-year-olds, Habbo’s virtual world population rivaled some real world countries with 135 million

users. Other networks also accommodate massive citizenry. 54 million inhabit Neopets, 34 million occupy Star Dolls, and 28 million reside in Club Penguin.

Older users seem to take more interest in real life social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Among 15 to 25-year-olds usage appears to diminish – apart from Poptropica, which maintains and active community of 35 million.

However, as existing, younger demographics of virtual worlds mature, their conditioning and expectations for sophisticated and immersive interaction won’t dwindle. Social Networks that cater to older demographics may soon need to integrate virtual features and experiences in order to attract new users over time.

Kzero breaks out the world of virtual words using a visual that resembles a radar screen. In its cartography of the virtual landscape, the company organizes the disparate varieties of communities in 12 categories:

- Soclializing/Chat

- Casual Gaming

- Misc

- Mirror Worlds

- Roleplay/Fantasy/Quests

- Toys/Real World Games

- Music

- Fashion/Lifestyle

- Education/Development

- Sports

- TV/Film/Books

- Content Creation

Virtual Worlds by Sector (Click for Larger Image):

Virtual Worlds Organized by Registered Accounts:

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