Recently, Facebook and Twitter added location options. Twitter announced in April that they will allow users to attach metadata to tweets. This data could include location information.

Facebook is teaming up with McDonald’s in what some see as the future of location based social networking. When users check in at any nearby McDonalds, they’ll receive reward coupons for the restaurant.
With 100 million Facebook users who check or update their status from mobile phones every day, Facebook and McDonalds are both hoping the project takes off .

The first, smaller location based companies may be concerned about Facebook’s entrance into the market, given the size of the behemoth. Facebook is also planning to allow members to add their location to any status updates.

The early companies offer games, finding friends, and recommendations of places to visit. With the entrance of Facebook, there may be a quicker move toward targeted advertising and coupons from the businesses a person checks in, such as McDonalds.

For users, the value becomes not only the fun of a game, but an opportunity to get personalized deals. For advertisers, the opportunity to reach a specific niche helps them target their advertising dollars.

Should you jump on board location based networking? Many people predict that this feature will grow, particularly as more and more people begin using smart phones. Privacy and safety will be a primary concern for Facebook, as it has been for the smaller players in the business. However, more people being involved means the more concern about privacy and the more attention companies will pay to the issue.

So as a business, its worth watching location based social networking and its worth considering having a presence in the trend.

We find that Sitecore offers flexibility, power, ease of use and constant innovation that serves our clients well.

In the fast-changing and evolving world of web content, it can be difficult to know if a particular WCM product is keeping up with the changes and spearheading innovative solutions.

However, a Gartner’s MarketScope analysis has again confirmed that Sitecore is not only a solid performer in the world of WCM, but is in fact a visionary and a leader in the market.

Gartner’s analysis examines factors such as the core services and products offered in a content management system, including the features and feature groupings, the quality of the offerings, and whether or not the features are native or offered through agreements with third party vendors.

They also consider the overall business stability of the organization, their financial vision and strategy and likelihood of continued support for their WCM product.

Other factors taken into consideration in the equation are market responsiveness, the product’s track record in the past, the quality and execution of the product’s marketing program, actual customer experiences with the product, and the functionality of the business organization itself.

In a comparison to 17 other content management systems, no other system beats Sitecore for its completeness of vision or its ability to execute it’s vision and make it happen in the real world.

Take a look at Gartners evaluation, and see if you’d like to put the Sitecore system to work for your online business. If so, our Sitecore specialists at WebDatamation can make it happen for you.

Obama transformed campaigning and politics through his use of the Internet as a campaign tool.

He did not stop with a simple website, as many candidates have posted in the past, or a simple money raising campaign as Howard Dean and Ron Paul effectively ran.

Obama created a complete internet package for his political campaign that took full advantage of the new medium in ways that had not been fully imagined before.

Remember his videos – which he compared to Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” — on YouTube? Those were viewed millions of times — for a total of 14.5 million hours. How much would Obama have had to pay for 14.5 million hours of television advertising time? According to the New York Times, $47 million.

And with the YouTube videos and internet messages, Obama was able to get his own message out, the way he wanted it told and as long as he wanted it to be. He wasn’t constrained by 30 or 60 second advertising spots, and he wasn’t filtered and quoted by journalists.

His message was framed, produced and presented entirely according to his own standards and what he wanted to accomplish. Best of all in a political campaign, the cost was negligible to reach those hundreds of thousands of potential supporters.

For politicians, this internet opportunity is the merging of all the best possible factors for campaigning: unfiltered messages going directly to supporters, low cost, wide accessibility, and good credibility as a source of information – great messages for individuals and businesses to keep in mind as well.

What does this mean for the average business with a web presence? It means that you want to optimize your site – not just for Google and other web crawlers, but also for small screen browsers.

Although there was some talk of needing a “mobile device only” version of every website, this kind of duplication is not necessary.  In fact, a cascading style sheet, or CSS, can be written into your web page, instructing the device as it loads your page, to optimize your site for the phone or PDA that is requesting it. So writing in CSS is the first step to optimizing your page for hand held devices and smart phones.

Use a program like the Openwave Phone Simulator to test your web page and see how it will look on a “generic” cell phone type device. If you know the specific parameters of a particular type of device (say, an Apple iPhone), then you can increase the parameters and get an accurate view.

Then optimize your content. Remember that too much text is too much for a smartphone device, and keep the articles short (no more than 500 words, on average). Many small articles with relevant links are better than one long article.

Make sure that the most important elements in your page will load in the center of the phone’s screen, and are accessible without scrolling.  Make sure your pages load quickly. Cell phones and smart phones have slower internet connections than most broadband providers, and you don’t want a clunky website that gums up the works. The customer will click the “close” box after a few seconds.

Many cell phone users will block the photos on your site from loading, so be sure to have relevant and interesting ALT tags that identify your photos. You want your page to make sense to the viewer who has no photo access.

With a little planning,  you will have a great website that is optimize for both PC and smartphone use.

We’ve been using Sitecore for our own website and for client’s websites because of its incredible power and functionality. Now Sitecore has also been recognized by independent research firm Forrester Research as a top CMS.

Forrester Research points out what the experts at Webdatamation could tell you — the flexibility and power of Sitecore make it strong in areas where competitors are weak.

The system is excellent for ease in creating content and integrating the content into a site, managing the workflow, and integrating content.

Sitecore also gets high marks for its ability to effectively target sites and content, having a global approach, integrating numerous sites, and for its community controls.

Sitecore leads out in multilingual content and in providing the means for making a separation between content and the presentation. This creates a dynamic environment for delivering the message and for using graphics and text in other contexts for different purposes.

Webdatamation chose Sitecore in part because it is a powerful solution for both simple websites as well as complex, fully powered sites.

The features of Sitecore allow for a highly flexible website that can integrate all of the Web 2.0 features.  Marketing departments can add website content or sales information to a company site easily without a great deal of technical knowledge, and still maintain a professional and responsive site.

It’s simple to integrate any analytic tools  and other business software into the Sitecore system, and it’s compatible with ecommerce products so that customers and site visitors have a seamless and enjoyable experience on your site.

We also like Sitecore because of their constant updates, research and trend forecasting. We know that our customers will have all the latest tools at their fingertips as soon as they are available.

If you haven’t yet seen what Sitecore can do for you, contact us at Webdatamation and let us give you a glimpse.

If you don’t use iGoogle, you may want to consider it, particularly if this financial information is as crucial to you as it is to many in the business world.

iGoogle is the customizable homepage from Google. It has a Google search bar across the top, then you can customize the page with any of a number of Google gadgets that allow you to check your email, get news feeds you select and a variety of other tasks.

There are a number of great gadgets that provide pertinent and updated financial information as well.

Some of the best are:

Commodities Market. So many businesses are affected by the price of commodities (thinking oil, here). Catch each price change through the day with the shifting conditions by using the Commodities Market gadget.

Company Overview. Hear a bit of news about a company and want to see how that news is affecting stock prices, company officers, or financial ratios? Hear about a new company and want to get some info about company news or key management figures?

With the Company Overview Gadget, all you need to do is type in the ticker symbol for any listed company and you’ll snag all that information and more about any publicly held company. You will even find the means to join quarterly earnings calls for any company you’re interested in.

Track all your stocks right on your home page with the Google Finance Portfolios. Get summaries for all the major indexes, then add each of your own stocks to the gadget. As soon as you open your home page, the info is updated, and you get the latest ion your companies. If you want more details on any company at any time, just click on that company to go to the Google Finance page.

There are many other financial gadgets: Currency Converter if you travel often, Latest Bulls keeping you up on what’s hottest in the market, Dow Jones and Live Gold, just to name a few.

Let iGoogle make it simple for you to keep up with your finances whenever you open your browser.

About 46 percent of the mobile phones in the world operate on the Symbian platform, but most of them are in Europe and the Middle East. However, Symbian is making strides to close the gap in the U.S. and Japan.

Why this matters to you as a developer or a business interested in reaching Symbian customers is that in 2008, Nokia bought all the shares of Symbian that it didn’t already own and announced that it will become an open source platform, like other mobile platforms. This means that anyone will be able to develop applications for the Symbian-based phones.

Although you may think Symbian will be a late comer to the mobile apps market, it would be unwise to count them out. The platform has been around for years, they have a loyal customer base for the Nokia phones, and technology is a fickle thing.

When the iPhone was first released, it was perfection embodied. There was not a criticism to be had. But when Palm released the Pre, suddenly the iPhone seemed stodgy and lacking – what? No cut and paste on an iPhone? How passé.

So all it will take is for Symbian to come out with some great innovations that capture the imaginations of the population, and they can take hold of a significant portion of the market quickly.

With Symbian phones already in the hands of millions of mobile customers around the world – nearly half the mobile device users – developers and businesses would do well to watch the Symbian development as well.

As they go open source completely in the coming months, a huge potential market opens up for anyone ready to jump in and be an early adopter of the platform, the possibilities are endless.

And with a completely different philosophy governing the marketing of the soon-to-come applications, developers may find in Symbian a more open and accessible wireless application partner.

Your online presentation is an important aspect of your business, and you want the appearance and functionality of your site to reflect your philosophy and your products in a way that is accessible and easy to use.

Build Trust

Your company website projects an image and an attitude. Really, the business website should be considered a part of your overall marketing campaign. The immediate impression that a visitor gets from your website tells them about your business.

If your site is well organized, well designed, and fully functional, then customers will trust your business and the products you offer. If the website looks amateur or filled with frivolous advertising unrelated to your products, they’ll likely have a negative impression and distrust your business.

Invest in great web design to create the image you want you business to portray.

Ease of Use

Great web designs are also easy to use. Make sure that there are plenty of links that connect customers with important information, and that they can easily get back to where they want to be on your site.

Today’s customers expect high quality, professional design on a website. They do respond to good marketing and great design, and want to be able to navigate around a site easily. They want to find the information, products and services that they need quickly and logically, or they’ll soon be off to find another site.

Functionality

Your website design also needs to be functional. Links need to be active, and the code needs to be complete. Simple coding errors can lead to “broken” websites that can’t be seen by viewers. Even simple things can prompt viewing errors. Not only does this deter customers, but your Google rankings drop with non-functional links.

You want to be sure your ecommerce solution is intuitive, security and functional so that your customers feel comfortable making purchases on your site. Any ease of use functions add to customer satisfaction, and that leads to repeat purchases.

Get Design Expertise

The web designers at Webdatamation know just how to design effective and creative websites that meet customers’ needs. Our designers can add any elements for interaction, information and commerce to make your site both highly attractive and highly functional.

“I’ll add you on Facebook!”

“Hey, we are Orkut friends!”

“I’ll subscribe to your RSS feed right away!”

You will agree, these are some of the most touted phrases that we use when we “network”. However, this is not the way the journey had begun. The transformation from toys to tools was a revolution that brought out a whole new “Social Economy” in “Social Networks”.

Emotions have been replaced by emoticons, expressions have given way to smileys and the English Language has seen drastic reforms in the present era. Yes, we are using a super condensed and more “expressive” way of communication, thanks to social networking.

Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and many others took birth in the World Wide Web and primarily made their presence felt as networking toys. Little did we realize then, about the enormous networking capabilities they had. Soon, along with inviting our near ones to hang out at a party, we were “inviting” them to our online profiles on these websites. There were friends, friends of friends; can I say an online “big bang”?

Yes, the concept might be surreal, but the sheer fascination and excitement to be a part of this revolution paved way for the dynamics of theses toys to mutate into tools. It would be quite difficult to point out the exact period when this transformation took place, but you knew it was there when you were networking more online rather than calling up or e-mailing the same people. Your business cards and identities changed during this era and now included information of your online profiles or networks.

“Human networks” is the word of the hour. We have been consistent in synthesizing our conversations through these digitally woven, close environments, with a wide array of inbound and outbound hyperlinks dominating our online presence. We are scheduling meetings, hanging out, having conversations, sharing interests, making a social statement in a world of our own. All these worlds come together in the digital universe. The good news is, we are getting addicted to it every day and striving to reach its epitome.

“To err is human…” What is human? Is it an online Avatar or the one who sits behind it and controls its actions? Are our online counterparts facing an identity crisis?

The principles associated with this new social economy have brought about the tools in toys and I am now a part of it. The trick of the trade is to propel your identity towards the proper direction and your intended audience.

Welcome to the world of social networking once again…have you noticed the change?

There are a number of strategies through which one can optimize their own website. Of these, the one that is worth mentioning is the “Cloud”. Many of you might have this question in your mind as to, “what is a cloud?” and “what does a cloud has to do in SEO?” Well, let me throw some light on this. Clouds can be of many types, such as, profile clouds, link clouds, content clouds and so on. However, the most commonly, or rather the only form of cloud used or discussed in the SEO works is the tag cloud. When you are looking in some website page, you must have come across a section headed “Tags”. Under this head you will see a bunch of words, placed one after another, some appearing small in size, whereas, some big and bold. The difference in the size is dependent on the number of times each word or tag has been associated with an item. This whole section is called ‘word cloud’ or sometimes called ‘tag cloud’. In general, the tag cloud helps a visitor to have an idea about the well-liked tags that are present in that particular site. The individual word or tag is actually linked to a page where you will get contents related to the tag you clicked.

This has been a very useful tool for search engine optimization and is gaining widespread acceptance by websites who want to optimize their keywords for search engines. Actually, the whole idea behind a tag cloud is to help you “visualize” content that is most relevant to a websites based on certain keywords or the keywords you searched for.

However, I am sure, you might have come across a funny situation where you have seen a website having certain keywords in its tag cloud in the boldest forms and yet it does not contain any content related to that keyword! For those of you, who have not, watch out!

The most popular search engine spiders cannot read JavaScript or images, just as they read and process plain text. However since having a tag cloud requires some logistic optimizations on keyword history, such clouds are represented by either using JavaScript code or images. This accounts for a cloud that contains misleading tags. The answer to this problem is simple; pictures alone DO NOT best define your website. No, they are not at all friendly to search engines. They may be professional enough to attract the solitary attention of a friendly customer but they are like alien material for crawlers and spiders!

The best practice is to make good use of the “alt” and “title” tags for your images. This will allow the web spiders to crawl your web page in the most efficient manner and mine information from the content of your website. Identify your perception of the tag cloud; for example, which keywords should be bolder, and then compare it with the actual results. Modify or edit the “alt” or “title” tags accordingly.

If you spend some time on this, you will soon come up with satisfying results. Yes, “Tag” is the new SEO language that is creating waves, why shouldn’t you capitalize?