When you partner with The Sales Standard you’re reaching to sales, marketing, and Internet experts who are ready to take your sales to a higher level. TSS can also manage the sales solutions they create , which helps ensure your success.

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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.

But don’t let your SEO efforts stop there. Searchers on the internet are becoming more particular – they don’t want to comb through so many results. Many know that general keywords give them irrelevant returns. So searchers are using sentences, different phrases that have been used before, and more specific inquiries to try to get to the information they want.

This creates an opportunity for you as a businesses. Although these longer keywords – or more correctly, keyword phrases don’t get the large number of hits individually, combined together, they now drive half of internet traffic. More than half of the searchers on the internet use three or more words to get what they want.

So as a marketer on the internet, look at your primary keywords and then begin creating phrases that include those words, but are more specific and unique to your business. Between 20 and 25 percent of Google’s searches are unique – they’ve never been searched in exactly that way before. So you want to grab whatever part of that search you can and attempt to make it relevant to your site.

As you become more specific, you have fewer pages competing for those longer phrases, and that means your site has a better chance of being seen.

Use the shorter keywords you’ve already established as being relevant, and interlink those words with longer phrases. If your site sells tulip bulbs, for example, you likely have already chosen the keywords “tulip bulbs” to market with SEO.

Now, optimize those keywords by building on them. Pick up more traffic by integrating such phrases as “authentic Holland tulip bulbs,” “biggest blossoms tulip bulbs,” “black tulip bulbs,” “how to plant tulip bulbs,” and “how do I find good tulip bulbs.”

Besides displaying your products for sale, consider building short (200 – 300 word) content pages answering queries, then also feature products on those pages. Have easy links to the rest of your site, and make an attractive landing page. Link to your related pages.

As with all SEO, you’ll need to do continual revisions and updates to stay ahead of the search game, but using long tailed keywords to help capture those millions of unique searches that may drive more hits to your site.

Although only about 20 percent of internet users use the Firefox browser, many of those users are the serious internet surfers. Those in the industry almost universally prefer the open source app to the Microsoft browser.

So when Mozilla announced in 2008 that they would soon release a mobile version of their browser, they generated some buzz. There were some stutter steps with the first versions, but as with all Firefox products, the bugs get worked out pretty quickly.

The latest release is Fennec Alpha 1, and it has been revamped with a CSS user interface. What does this mean? Well, even though the browser only works on Windows Mobile Smart Phones like the HTC Touch Pro currently, the CSS interface means that it will be easily adapted to a wide range of different devices, unlike the original version.

So, if you have another operating system on your phone, no fear. Firefox is making use of  that CSS based interface to create mobile browsers for other systems. Recently, a Firefox official noted that Symbian phones make up nearly half of the smartphone sales, so Firefox will need to “have a presence on the Symbian platform.” So expect a Symbian version to be officially announced in the near future.

Still, there are plenty of other smartphone owners who prefer Firefox as a browser – will Fennec be coming soon to an iPhone near you? Probably not – and you android users need not hold your breath, either.

Firefox officials cite licensing and technical issues that prevent them from developing Fennec for iPhone, RIM and Android. Still, it will be great to see if all the things we love about the PC Firefox browser are integrated into Fennec quickly enough for them to gain a big market share.

The most recent news from Microsoft points toward a fall release for the upgraded system that will replace Windows Mobile 6.1.

What’s coming up with the new release?

First of all, a start menu that produces large icons in a honeycomb shape, rather than numerous small icons in rows. The idea is that these will be easier to punch without hitting the wrong one.

The 6.5 version will also include widgets on the home screen with quick updates on status info – missed calls, new texts and voice mails, etc.

There’s a visual makeover in most spots for the new OS, making things more touch-friendly all the way around, especially in the messaging and email areas.

When the new app is finally official, there will be a new Windows Mobile Marketplace – a great way to consolidate all those different Win Mo apps floating around the internet. While the apps are now subject to Microsoft approval, iPhone apps store has shown this doesn’t need to be much of a problem.

How will the new OS do? Well, considering that every new feature that Windows is touting for the 6.5 version is already available on one or more other mobile operating systems, its hard to say.

Hardware developers like Samsung are advertising their newest phones as being 6.5 compatible and upgradeable, but the release date has already been moved back several times, making the wait a little long.

With so many other mobile OS developers pushing the envelope every day, it appears that Microsoft may find themselves behind the curve. Those dedicated fans who just love their Windows OS will doubtless be there, but bringing in new users will be a stretch for the venerable company.

The core of Andriod comprises of an operating system, key applications, add-ons and plugins as well as middleware. So it basically forms a complete software stack for mobile devices. It is build upon the open Linux Kernel and adds a custom virtual machine to it, that facilitates optimization of hardware and memory resources. This additionally makes Android an “open” development framework in its true sense. The direct advantage that Android promises is extensibility, and the architecture can be extended to accomodate any future technologies as they continue to emerge.

As an example, a developer writing a new app for the Android can directly invoke any of the phone’s core functionalities. Whether it is making calls, sending text messages, navigating through the underlying file system or using the camera, the rich set of APIs in the SDK will provide the developers with a very cohesive development experience.

The icing on the cake is that Android is open source. Developers can download the Andriod SDK and start developing custom software or plugins for devices that support the Andriod framework. Already, a huge number of applications have already gained popularity in the Android market, including our very own FileDroid.

Are you thinking about the competition from the existing mobile market? Well, for a quick take on that, we have to simply wait and watch. Android can be called the new kid on the block and it is likely to face tough competition from iPhone, Palm Pre, Windows Mobile and Symbian. The open handset alliance, owned by the company, has already 34 companies as its mutual members which include several handset manufacturers, mobile operators and chipmakers. An interesting observation however is the fact that the first launch of Android on HTC was not a grand success. I must say here, that when a new product rolls out into the market, and something that is as complex as an operating system, it has to go through a substantial amount of fixes and updates before being declared stable for all devices. I guess that is what the Android is going through right now. However, it is too early to draw a conclusion about either success or failure of Android. I think Android can get very popular, it just needs good hardware. The G1 doesnt do justice to the Android OS.

A liitle bit of Google is in all our lives, isint it? We have to wait for that little bit to get into our mobiles!

Save yourself a lot of time and trouble giving directions by embedding a Google Maps locator right on your website using Google Maps API.

This tool allows you to use JavaScript to place a Google Map into your site, pinpointing your location with the superior accuracy that internet users have come to expect from Google Maps.

You can add different utilities for manipulating maps that are the same as the tools your customers are used to using on the Google Maps page. You can also utilize the numerous utilities available for manipulating maps, and add content to your maps by using various other services.

The Google Maps API will let you create a robust, customized map environment that is familiar to your customers and unique to your business. You can choose from normal, 2D maps, satellite maps, and hybrid maps showing some photographs and prominent roads.

There are many other features you can add to your map, like street view, street view points of view, geocoding and reverse geocoding (converting physical addresses into geographic coordinates of latitude and longitude), and a local search bar.

If your website is free and open access, then Google Maps API is free for your use.

You can actually earn advertising revenue from using your Google Maps API. The new GoogleBar has advertising beside local business search results. You can earn from this advertising if you have a link from the GoogleBar to an AdSense account. It’s easy to sign up for an AdSense account, as well.

For an overview of the Google Maps API and an introduction to the many features, check out the website at http://code.google.com/apis/maps/.

For instructions on how to utilize many of the features of Google Maps API, including the advertising feature, click here: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/services.html#Advertising

Attention and Economy may be two diverse terms but in the modern times is naturally amalgamating, with one becoming highly interdependent on the other. Let us consider an example to show you exactly how attention affects economy.

While searching for the latest book reviews or releases, how often do you navigate away from a page that does not contain the review of a book that you have been looking for? The chances are high. The fact is, with so many websites and blogs being continuously updated with information on your favorite genre(s), you do not bother to stick to a page and search for information that is not there in the first glance! It takes seconds before you decide to look for your information on a different website or a web page and navigate away from the present one if you are not satisfied with its content. In the process, have you noticed the crisis of attention?

If you observe closely, you will find that this attention deficit not only affects us, but also the organizations keen to reach out to you with their products or services. The moment you are navigating away from a page presuming that the information provided in it is not relevant, you are hurting their economics. Search engines, online retailers, blogs, and news sites are coughing up an overabundance of information for the end users or the consumers every passing hour. This can lead to a loose-loose situation where eventually, a consumer leaves a website, un-happy and a retailer looses business. The irony is, a consumer wants to spend money for a commodity, but does not have the correct retailer reaching out to him.

The entire idea behind attention economy is to create a virtual marketplace where consumers are presented with streamlined content that makes them feel happy and satisfied, in lieu of their attention. More specifically, consumers are made to consume advertisements however, in exchange of certain personalized services. For example, personalized searches, news, alerts and buying recommendations, to name a few.

You might have noticed the “sponsored links” in the Google search pages. You get to use the search feature of Google for free; however, you are being presented with some relevant advertisements based on your search keyword on the search results page. This is an excellent example that demonstrates attention economy in action.

One of the important aspects of attention economy relates to the fact that the consumer can exercise the power of his or her choice. Therefore, the consumer gets to decide where to devote their attention. Websites are also capitalizing on the “online surfing habits” of the consumer, thereby optimizing the way in which information may be sorted and presented.

One might probably argue with the usage of the word “Economy” here. Attention economy is different form its conventional counterpart in the way in which barter is established. The latter has a more explicit or direct form where goods and services may be bought or sold. However, in the former, there is no immediate buying or selling of commodity. The focus is more towards creating deterministic opportunities to sell.

According to the TIMES report, the petition says that Google Earth “aids terrorists in plotting attacks” and offers “absolutely no control to prevent misuse or limit access” of the services. Investigation to Mumbai terror attacks and interrogation of the only live terrorist reveal that the terrorists used GPS and other high tech tools to plot, execute and then monitor the attacks with ease.

This is not the first time when Google Earth has been asked to blur the satellite images of the sensitive areas. In 2005, Australian officials asked to remove the pictures of their only nuclear reactor Lucas Heights from Google Earth. In 2006, Bahrain officials barred Google Earth, and China too banned websites that sold unapproved images. Some countries like Holland have gone into an agreement to block or censor the sensitive areas especially their military bases. Some countries have even concealed their sensitive military bases by putting them underground. According to a USA Today report, some countries like India can detect when a satellite passes overhead and conduct sensitive military activities accordingly so that the satellites do not capture the images of these activities. Even in USA,  google mappers and google street view photographers were banned from accessing Pentagon and other military bases.

Google earth has revolutionized the way the internet works today. However, one should also understand that gifts for some might be curses in disguise for the others. When it comes to sensitive issues like national security and the like, Google should co-operate with the respective authorities.

“So what is the big deal?”

Web 2.0 had revolutionized the way in which websites present their content to  users. Structured layouts, the use of layers in presenting information, the buzzwords that replaced flashy banners, sleazy elements, pop up(s) and so on. The message was loud and clear: if you wanted to increase your website traffic and do business, your design had to be “user friendly”.

Today, Web2.0 has achieved whatever it had set out to achieve. The user now  see terabytes of information, laid out on a palate in a precise, structured and presentable manner. Well today, more or less this is what your perspective of the internet is. However, what does this information convey to its machine counterparts?

Of course, we are talking about all sorts of servers and end systems that collectively participate in delivering your requested information to your browser. With an increase of focus towards presentation, the information content has become more abstract for the machines to process. The machine views a web page as simply information stacked between HTML tags and formatted in ways that hide the intrinsic meaning of the information. Thus it is a difficulty to further process and mine this information for the machines.

This is exactly what Web 3.0 is being built on. However, it is not here to replace Web 2.0, but will render a parallel layer in addition to it. The new layer will add semantics to the information that will be transferred over the web. Machine intelligence can then be applied to process as well as mine this information so that web sites are no more dull pages of text and graphics.

Welcome to the world of web services and the domain of a new Web 3.0, where smart and intelligent services revolutionize what simple web sites have to offer. Web sites will now not only present information, but also expose certain methods that will allow you either full or partial access to the information repository of the service. This will assist an organization to offer their services to their B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Customer) clientele in an open platform or framework. What is ultimately being aimed  at here is, structuring information for the machines so that they can communicate themselves and present information to you that will be more customized and relevant. Unstructured information shall pave way for more structured and relevant content. A new open framework would slowly evolve for more intelligent computing.

More on this later. Till then, let us keep an eye on how things are likely to evolve!