Here’s a remarkable video showing the human element of how being gone affects these brave soldiers and their families. If you do not bawl, you are a soulless android with a Vulcan heart.

Please take the time to thank and honor these brave men and women this Veterans Day. Thank you.

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

So, us English types remember Hugh Laurie more along these lines:

As America has taken Hugh Laurie to their collective hearts, Stephen Fry has become the doyen of Britain’s digerati while remaining the nation’s favourite comedy celibate intellectual.

None of that matters other than padded context, but Monday saw the launch of Windows Phone 7. We don’t need to go into the merits the platform or even what it means for the mobile space. Feel free to share your thoughts though in the comments.

No, our Stephen gave a rather interesting little speech in London about how fun the new phone experience was.

Now it isn’t interesting because he gave it or because of the platform, but because it lays out how you can apply what he says about WP7 to any business and the online experience around them.

Yes, you can make it interesting and fun. In the same way Fry mentions how enjoyable the WP7 experience is, you can create engagement with your visitors that is equally enjoyable regardless of the industry you’re in.

Search and PPC tends to spend a lot of time getting you the leads, which is a fair enough call, but is it ludicrous to expect your site to be a fun/enjoyable place?
Why should corporate enterprise mean seriously dour? It’s quite apparent Microsoft thinks it shouldn’t be. Yes, really:

Disclaimer: I am currently the 97,865th person to slip ‘really’ into a post title in relation to the new WP7 advert thinking it’s a cute little quip.

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.

You see, when I started out, I did what most people do and looked for the cheapest hosting. You’ve no real idea as to how busy you’ll get and it’ll be a nice problem to have further down the line if you’re getting hits from Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all.

And another thing that seems quite nice with your unlimited-host-whatever-you-can-throw-at-us-platinum-deluxe-premium package is that you normally receive a free domain.

How can you turn down $4.95 a month for all-you-can-host plus a free domain? Yes, I found it quite alluring too.

Now I’m not going to bore you with the perils of cheap hosting, but I am going to badger you about your domain.

I went down the cheap hosting + free domain route when I started on my DIY road to Webmastering many moons ago. And I set up quite a few sites that way – all with the same host. Currently, I have one domain with them that no longer has a site hosted on it, but I still use an email address for certain PayPal transactions. Last night I purchased something, but found it rather odd that I didn’t receive an email confirmation from PayPal nor the folks I bought something from. I couldn’t find anything in various folders, so I did a simple bit of sleuthing to see if the email was working. No joy. On checking the Whois information I noticed that said domain was now registered to somebody in Korea. I checked my invoice to make sure I’d paid for a renewal, and I had – last August.

In a nutshell, the domain had been transferred even though I have a receipt dated 08/15/08 from both the host and PayPal confirming a renewal payment.

Looking through my emails, I’d received notifications that the domain was due to expire on 08/27/08 after the 08/15/08 renewal invoice date. Knowing this lot as the hapless harbingers of hosting doom they were I should’ve taken those emails more seriously rather than merely thinking they were being a bit stupid.

-1 to me.

I anticipate more pain than it’s worth to see this one through to its natural conclusion.

So, what should you do?

1. Let domain registrars handle your domains and let your hosts handle the hosting. I use Namecheap, others are happy using Godaddy (feel free to share others in the comments). A domain registrar allows you much more control over your domains and besides, that’s one of their core competencies. It isn’t something bolted on as an afterthought. They’re also cheaper in the long run. You’ll be surprised how many free domains suddenly get charged out at $15 a year once they’re no longer free.

2. Set up the domains yourself or at least make sure you have them registered in your name with your credit card and all the login information at hand. You don’t need to tattoo it to your thigh, but just make sure you’re the go-to guy and don’t need to rely on a third party to control the administration of your domain. This means you don’t let your Web designer set it up in their name. What happens if you have a falling out and they decide to turn their phone off and play naughty?

3. Buy your domain for the maximum amount of time possible, usually ten years. Then you really can forget about it for a while. This also has a nice SEO benefit in that search engines think you’re serious and in it for the long haul. It’s exactly the opposite of what spammers do.

4. If you don’t fancy the ten year thing set your domain to auto-renew. It’s much easier to dispense of domains you own than it is to get back one you’ve lost. How many hours would you be prepared to waste over $8.95?

I may have missed a startling piece of insight, so please feel free to share any tips or thoughts in the comments.

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.

As we all know, it takes all sorts. I’m a fan of exploring our differences and what makes us tick. But, there’s one thing I really don’t have any time for, and that’s intellectual atrophy. The lazy brain that accepts nonsense as fact without an ability to even process anything critically plays havoc with my blood pressure. It’s all too easy to say you don’t suffer fools gladly, but very few people claim stupidity as an endearing trait on their resume in the first place.

There has never been a time where so many people have had almost unfettered access to man’s knowledgebase, and been so unashamedly dumb at the same time. The answers we have at our fingertips, but we’re unable to engage in the processing of them. For example, we hear claim after claim from our candidates, and people demand answers – they even ask the right questions – but they should have no need to ask them. They should only need to ask in the form of a search query.

The only cast iron litmus test I have personally to know if somebody is intellectually slothful is if they ask me a question about something or other that would require me to do a search in order for me to answer – a search that they themselves could’ve done in the time it took to ask me the question. I’ve managed to curb the high pitched wailing to a menacing glower at anyone who does this while sat down next to me with a laptop. Of course, I have no problems with people asking me to search for something on their behalf, but an unwillingness to even engage in the process tells me your brain is lounging on a mental sofa in its underpants struggling to reach for a nearly-empty, flat bottle of warm Pepsi.

It’s not being stupid, it’s not being bothered about not being stupid. (Apologies for the Rumsfeldian turn of phrase.)

There’s nothing clever or tricky about searching, but there are a few tips that you are more than welcome to use if you think they may be of some use.

And if you think I’m going to tell you, you’ve got another thing coming, especially when Google has already laid out its essentials of Google search in its Web search help center here.

The real irony is, according to a recent UCLA study, that searching the net may help prevent mental mushiness in your advancing years.

Volunteers fell between the ages of 55 and 76. Half had experience conducting internet searches; half had no web experience at all. Otherwise, they were similar in education, gender and age.

“We found that in the reading-the-book task, the visual cortex — the part of the brain that controls reading and language — was activated,” observed Dr. Gary Small, a UCLA expert on aging. “In doing the internet search task, there was much greater activity, but only in the internet-savvy group.”

According to Small, users familiar with the internet were able to engage their brains at a much deeper level during search activities.

“People who had internet experience used more of their brain during the search […] This suggests that just searching on the internet may train the brain – that it may keep it active and healthy,” Small concluded.

In aging minds, cognitive function erodes against antagonists like atrophy and lower cell activity. Previous studies have found that actively engaging the mind — playing sudoku or completing a tough crossword puzzle, for example — can keep the brain fit, much like working out a muscle. Engaged regularly, such activities can even keep degenerative mind diseases like Alzheimer’s at bay.

Who woulda thought it, eh? Apart from those, of course, who are mentally AWOL in the first place….;-)

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.

I love it when the American media announces that history is being made then wails hysterically as soon as anybody moves off script. The irony is surely lost on most of the poor souls.

Man, did they ever dump all over John McCain’s speech and then all over Hillary’s lack of graciousness. CNN’s Jeff Toobin (who I strangely like as he contains the demeanor of a man who is mentally on a constant eyeball roll) was particularly savage in accusing her of ‘deranged narcissism‘.

Now both the Clinton and McCain campaigns haven’t worked their Internet mojos to the best of their abilities to milk their supporters of every last penny – and reminding them of your Website url halfway through your speech doesn’t count. So, I thought I’d throw this up the flagpole to see if either of them salute seeming one is struggling to make money and the other can’t help lending it to herself.

I recently came across a rather nifty concept in t-shirt design, delivery and marketing over on Read/Write Web. As described over there:

Japanese media-wiki company Nota offers a service called C-Shirt, a fascinating combination of technologies and concepts unlike anything we’ve seen before.

It’s a t-shirt, but with a mobile scannable code, wiki-like editing and a CreativeCommons license.

How it Works

C-Shirt shirts each come with a scannable little QR (Quick Response) code in the corner. If you see a C-Shirt that you like, worn by someone walking around town, you can scan the QR code with your mobile phone. (Especially if you’re in Japan where people scan QR codes with their phones all the time.) Your phone then captures the shirt’s unique URL on the Nota website, where you can load it up and edit the design however you like.

Each design is given a Creative Commons license (that’s what the C stands for) according to the wishes of the creator. Once you’ve got it how you like it, you can have it shipped to you just like any other T-shirt website would do.

Tell me this doesn’t sound fantastic.

But how are you going to swell your campaign coffers?

Well, imagine you’re at a political rally and you see a shirt you like of your chosen candidate. You can go up to that person and swipe the barcode on the shirt and purchase it immediately. You’d have all these t-shirts being virtually swapped via mobile devices designed by your supporters – maybe folks would be uploading pics they’ve just had taken with their candidate to create a t-shirt with – and you’d also be cultivating and strengthening bonds between them.

You’d also sell more t-shirts due to the ‘immediacy of the moment’ after a supremely delivered speech. Plus, your costs would be minimal as you wouldn’t have to print a shed load of ‘official’ merchandise beforehand. In fact, it shouldn’t eat in to your campaign funds at all.

Then again, I can only see the Clinton campaign trying to copyright half of the designs and most of the McCain t-shirts smelling of formaldehyde and mothballs.

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.

As the former Liverpool manager, Bill Shankly, was often misquoted:

‘Some people believe football is a matter of life and death.
I’m very disappointed with that attitude.
I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.’

Bill Shankly

How Bill Shankly would take the news of Ebbsfleet Utd being bought out by an Internet collective is anybody’s guess. But, I do know that when the WSJ reports the myfootballclub.co.uk takeover, something is going on.

Now there are two revolutionary aspects to this:

1. A football club being bought out by a 50,000 member trust who have all paid $70 for the privilege and will have an actual say in team selection, transfers and the daily running of the club. Full details of how it should work here.

2. That it is all being organized through the Internet.

As for the first point, you’d be well advised to follow this Google search if you want to dig a little deeper into the story.

I’m obviously more interested in the online aspect of it all. When all said and done, this wouldn’t be possible without the Internet. You wouldn’t be able to organize upwards of 50,000 people any other way. How else could you get over 50,000 people to vote on weekly team selection? How else would 50,000+ people from all over the world be able to consult about transfers? Phone calls and snail mail are neither timely or cost effective enough to run something along these lines. Before the Internet this would’ve been impossible.

All it takes is a Website with the required management and suitable functionality and email.

Now this may not work, but that could be for a myriad of reasons that we don’t need to get into here. The point is that the Internet allows this to be a viable idea in the first place. How this translates to other sports in other countries obviously depends on the success of this venture, but I can see a future in organizing supporters’ trusts along these lines for all teams. Supporters could pay an extra premium that would become a transfer fund and they could vote on who to buy – the fan’s player, so to speak. Could a properly set-up online fan’s forum help organize a team’s NFL draft picks? They could also transfer this collective voice to board meetings with the board using Web cameras to broadcast their meetings online. We’re talking more open and transparent sports organizations where fans feel fully franchised as opposed to being shirt models and garbage bins for over-priced hot dogs. After all, it matters.

The number of UK football clubs facing ten-point penalties for bad administration is proof that the existing way doesn’t always work; and the number of people being priced out of being supporters and feeling disenfranchised is growing astronomically.

The Internet offers new and exciting opportunities for old businesses with a bit of excitement left in them. You don’t have to do anything revolutionary in the grand scheme of things, just revolutionary in your scheme of things. We aren’t even talking about learning new skill sets or embracing new business mantras. In the case of the Ebbsfleet Utd takeover, we’re talking about a football trust at the end of the day.

It’s just an infinitely more cost effective one if done correctly.

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Enterprise Web Services Version 4.0.0 Coming Soon
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:26:24 -0000
From: Yahoo! Search Marketing
Reply-To: Yahoo! Search Marketing

Yahoo! Search Marketing

Yahoo! Search Marketing – Proprietary and Confidential

The following falls under the confidentiality restrictions of your advertising agreement(s).

Enterprise Web Services Version 4.0.0 Coming Soon
In the first half of 2008, Yahoo! Search Marketing is planning to launch a new version of the Enterprise Web Services (EWS) Marketing API. EWS Version 4.0.0 is a major version release and includes features that are backward-incompatible.

About this Release

* EWS Version 4.0.0 will be released to the EWS sandbox in Q1 2008.
* The production release will occur approximately 30 days after the sandbox release.
* While EWS Version 3.0.0 will continue to be available in production for 90 days after EWS Version 4.0.0 is released, we recommend that you switch to Version 4.0.0 as soon as possible.
* EWS Version 3.0.0 will not be available after the 90-day transition period ends.
* This release is backward-incompatible. To take advantage of the new features, you will need to re-compile your code against Version 4.0.0 WSDLs.

New Features
The new features and changes in EWS Version 4.0.0 are summarized below.

Variable minimum bids
Beginning in the first half of 2008, we plan to change our system so that minimum bids will no longer be fixed for all keywords; they may be higher or lower than $0.10. Minimum bids may vary by keyword, ad group and advertiser. EWS 4.0.0 is configured to work with variable minimum bids. If you do not upgrade to EWS 4.0.0, you may not have full control over your ads and keywords.

Changes for EWS elements and objects
The following changes for elements and objects will made with the release of EWS Version 4.0.0:

* New elements will be added to AdGroup, Keyword, Ad, and All Response objects.
* Three new objects will be created: Warning, BidStatus and NotParticipatingInMarketplaceReason.

New Operations for EWS Services
The following new operations will be added with the release of EWS 4.0.0:

CampaignService

* getMinBidForCampaignOptimizationGuidelines: Returns minBid for Campaign Optimization Guidelines by campaign ID.

AdGroupService

* getSponsoredSearchMinBidForAdGroup: Returns Sponsored Search min bid for an ad group by adgroup ID.
* getSponsoredSearchMinBidForAdGroups: Returns Sponsored Search min bid for multiple ad groups by multiple adgroup IDs.
* getSponsoredSearchMinBidForAdGroupOptimizationGuidelines: Returns Sponsored Search min bid for ad group optimization guidelines by ad group ID.
* getContentMatchMinBidForAdGroupOptimizationGuidelines: Returns Content Match min bid for ad group optimization guidelines by ad group ID.

AdService

* NotParticipatingInMarketplaceReason: Returns reasons for an ad not participating in a marketplace.
* getAdsByAdGroupByParticipatesInMarketplace: Returns ads by ad group by marketplace participation.

KeywordService

* getKeywordsByAdGroupBySponsoredSearchBidStatus: Returns keywords by ad group by Sponsored Search bid status.
* getReasonsForKeywordNotParticipatingInMarketplace: Returns reasons for a keyword not participating in a marketplace.
* getKeywordsByAdGroupByParticipatesInMarketplace: Returns keywords by ad group by marketplace participation.
* getSponsoredSearchMinBidForKeywordString: Returns Sponsored Search min bid by keyword.
* getSponsoredSearchMinBidForKeywordStrings: Returns Sponsored Search min bid for multiple keywords.
* getSponsoredSearchMinBidForKeywordOptimizationGuidelines: Returns Sponsored Search min bid for keyword optimization guidelines.

What Do I Need to Do?
We suggest that you first experiment with Version 4.0.0 in the EWS sandbox, make any required changes to your client application and test your implementation. Then, be ready to switch over to production when the product release is ready.

Questions?
For more information about our versioning process, please read our Versioning FAQs here.

If you have further questions, please contact your Technical Account Manager or ews-help@yahoo-inc.com.

** CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT FORWARD **

Want to make sure your Yahoo! Search Marketing emails go straight into your inbox? Just add [solutions@ysm.yahoo-email.com] to your address book today.

TM and/or ® and © Yahoo! Search Marketing 2007. All rights reserved.
Yahoo! Search Marketing is located at 3333 Empire Avenue, Burbank, CA 91504 USA
Patents | Copyright Act | Trademark Info | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use

For more information about how Yahoo! Search Marketing uses your information, please see the Privacy Policy.

So whaddya think – a good update? Does this mean small(er) businesses targeting long tail keywords could be the main beneficiaries of this? Anything else jump out at you?

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.

If I’ve heard him whine about illegal immigrants and Chinese outsourcing once, I’ve heard him whine a thousand times. His current (and other ‘commenters’) crispy-shredded beef with China’s non-existent quality control borders on the hysterical.

I’m almost starting to believe that there are secret slips written in Chinese compelling children to ingest their lead-fueled and carcinogenic Barbie Dolls in some dastardly plot to retardate or kill off America’s future. And now the evil swines are trying to nobble us all via toxic apple juice.

I’m expecting exploding Chinese-made Twinkies any day soon.

But they’re managing to spin along the lines that America has been blind-sided. Companies like Mattel had no idea how deadly their toys were going to be – after all, it’s all Chinese to them. However, had these toys been made at a plant in the US then Mattel would’ve been entirely culpable. What difference does it make whether your production is in Shaghai or Chicago (other than the fact that production and labor costs are devastatingly cheaper in Shanghai).

Britain added the great on the backend of its empire building. And its empire was built on the industrial revolution. And the industrial revolution was built on working practices that Mr. Burns would consider harsh until certain movements saw otherwise.

But, there’s a problem with the less caring form of capitalism in that it can’t help but go back to its default setting and its roots. It’s a sucker for ensuring low wages, long hours and exploitation. It doesn’t want to make money with incredible products or fabulous ideas but simply by squeezing margins and turning a blind eye to health and safety because it just gets in the way.

The trade union movement, factory acts and education acts in the mid-1800s weren’t lame ideas dreamt up by liberal idealists. Some people thought civic responsibility in the workplace and teaching children something other than a thirteen hour day before their teens a progressive concept.

And that’s what brought about the co-operative movement in 1844, not a stone’s throw away from where I was born and raised. The co-operative mission statement at the time read something like this:

They had decided it was time shoppers were treated with honesty, openess and respect, that they should be able to share in the profits that their custom contributed to and that they should have a democratic right to have a say in the business. Every customer of the shop became a member and so had a true stake in the business.

This way of doing business was revolutionary. These businessmen didn’t adulterate products, putting leaves in tea or chalk in flour. They didn’t simply see customers as the way to make a profit at the expense of others.

As we saw during the industrial revolution, so we now see during the internet revolution.

There are aspects of marketing your business online that allow for honest brokerage, such as blogging. The fact that any company can open their corporate soul and converse openly and directly to customers easily and at reasonable cost is revolutionary in itself.

However, I’m still amazed – although I probably shouldn’t be – how many shysters, cads and bounders there are in this Internet revolution. The number of dubious contracts I’ve seen that tie clients to their Webhosts, design firms and PPC management contractors would surely make the devil blush – erm, not that you’d exactly notice!

I remember one lady when I was in the UK who entertained the thought of starting a blog being told by her designer/host that he wasn’t prepared to install one and that only he could upload any pages to the site at $30 a time. When I confronted him about it it was apparent he had only the vaguest idea about blogs and wasn’t prepared to shift from his original stance. Let’s just say some choice words were used from my end.

You can’t blame the client. They want a Web presence, and if you don’t know what you’re talking about you’re a potential target. Just like I’m a target with unscrupulous car mechanics!

Web marketing is still in its infancy and so reputations might not be what they are in more established industries. Therefore, it should be up to certain members within it that have a conscience to try and ensure potential clients aren’t suffering from the online equivalent of shysters who would gladly put leaves in your tea or chalk in your flour.

And I shall now go for a lie down in a darkened room….

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.

There are two types of people in this world – those who love what they do and those who just do it for the money. Yes, we all need a dollar or two to keep the wolf from the door, but not all of us need to be the wolf at the door.

In all walks of life at various stages and ages you’ll get those who will go an extra yard and those who know exactly how many yards they’re willing to go and will go no more.

Now I’ll admit that we can’t all do what we love – maybe your work affords you that luxury. But, I honestly won’t forgive corporations for not employing people who love what they do or develop an environment for their workforce to love what they do.

This past Friday we had Comcast back to wire up the back room after running a temporary cable up through the kitchen window. There was nothing they could do without the landlady’s say-so. And, with the landlady being away everything remained so-so until she got back.

She said the cable people could do what they needed to do and were informed accordingly. Imagine my slight disgust on returning from work on Friday to another cable running through a different window but this time to the back room. The cable guy couldn’t do anything without an electrician weaving some form of magic beforehand.

Strangely enough, this hadn’t been mentioned by the last cable guy or his manager when they originally tried to hook everything up. They just needed permission off our landlady to do whatever it was they needed to do.

I’m only picking on cable guys as they’re one of those professions that have a wildly different type of employee attending at any given time (or such an impression has been made upon me in my experience). Some of them love it and will happily talk HD or digital shop to you for a good half hour. Some simply can’t wait to do the bare minimum and toddle off for a coffee before their next appointment. And some are just plain inept.

There is no excuse for employing the bone idle or the inept. They will ruin any business and dilute your goodwill by people like me wittering about them on blogs or to their chums.

It shouldn’t be a given that a certain percentage of employees are going to be partially useless. Especially when there’s a decent percentage who’ll offer you a couple of extra free HD channels just because they know you’re going to love it as much as they do.

These are the types of people you should employ at every turn. The ones who are truly passionate about what they’re doing for you and truly believe in the type of product or service you’re trying to sell. Not some dope who can’t find the cables and defers all responsibility to a completely different profession thus washing his own personal hands of the affair.

Then again, if you’re the type of business owner who would sack the good cable guy for giving away the odd HD channel and would reward the latter for not spending excessive man hours on wiring up a second room then I’m wasting my breath am I not?

Still, it’s not like I haven’t wasted my breath before.

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.

Y’know, just like we all were when we first started. Oh, happy days.

Now if that wasn’t enough, we now have another old dear in Sweden enjoying the world’s fastest internet connection.

“A 75 year old woman from Karlstad in central Sweden has been thrust into the IT history books – with the world’s fastest internet connection.

Sigbritt Löthberg’s home has been supplied with a blistering 40 Gigabits per second connection, many thousands of times faster than the average residential link and the first time ever that a home user has experienced such a high speed.”

What is it they say about youth being wasted on the young? What about lightning fast internet speeds being wasted on the old?

Can you tell I’m a teensy bit jealous?

Do you have any idea what such a connection affords the average mortal?

“Sigbritt will now be able to enjoy 1,500 high definition HDTV channels simultaneously. Or, if there is nothing worth watching there, she will be able to download a full high definition DVD in just two seconds.”

Dare I be so glib as to point out that in the article the woman in question just so happens to be the mother of “Swedish internet legend Peter Löthberg” who works at Cisco sorting out blistering connections for a living.

I could go down that route, but I’m not going to as I think a moral that can be taken from this particular story, and from that of my dear old ma, is that these technologies are not just for ubergeeks in fashionable areas but for everyone. These technologies can easily be accessed by all generations in areas that we normally don’t associate with this kind of thing.

As some Cisco chap points out at the end of the article:

“The most difficult part of the whole project was installing Windows on Sigbritt’s PC,”

Ain’t that the truth!

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.