Mobile Computing Survey

Please take a moment and fill out this short, 10 question survey. It's for a college class. I appreciate your assistance in this matter.

Click here to take survey

Are you "optimized"

Are you optimized?  What does that mean?  "Optimized" refers to Search Engine Optimization or SEO.  SEO is the process whereby you ensure that your site is place higher than your rival or competitors website.  Basically there are two ways you can bring about SEO: you can either pay for it, via a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising campaign or Organic SEO which means your webpage/website gets ranked on it's own with out paying for it.

Organic SEO is part art and part science.  And this is because the big search engines, such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN have their own algorithms and other "secret sauce" techniques that they keep secret.  These algorithms usually change frequently.  Probably one of the biggest things you can do for yourself if you want to get your brand or website out in front is think of all of the keywords that might be associated with your brand, business or site.  Keywords cannot be stressed enough.  You need to use keywords everywhere you can on your site.  Keywords need to be used in naming files and folders, in your meta tagging and descriptions, and keywords text in your links as opposed to "click here."

There are some useful and FREE sites that can help you with your SEO efforts:

http://www.majesticseo.com/
http://google.com/insights/search/#
http://www.google.com/analytics/
http://www.semrush.com/
http://www.seomoz.org
http://www.iwebtool.com
http://www.overture.com   Keyword Selector Tool


Another thing to remember is to minimize the use of flash and javascript as much as possible.  I know this doesn't sound smart because you may have some super-duper, cool, snazzy flash media on your site, but flash and javascript aren't searchable. Another by product of minimizing the use of flash/javascript is that it will make your site load quicker.  A fast loading site can also increase your rankings and rating to the search engine.  Make sure you keep your website up to date and fresh.  Try to occasionally add new content.  It not only will build new user interest, it may also boost your ranking with search engines.  But most of all, remember to have patience and persistence.

Designing Magazines for Tablets: Report from SXSW

Designing Magazines for Tablets: Report from SXSW

Add a Google Buzz icon to Blogger

Howdy everybody!

I found a very cool blog that has the code to place a Google Buzz icon to your blogger/blogspot blog.  I think I will look up how to add a Facebook and Twitter icon/link next.  There sure is some pretty cool stuff out there by people way smarter than me.  All you have to do is have an imagination and take a little time.

The link to the blog that has the instructions and code is: http://bloggerstop.net/2010/02/add-google-buzz-it-buttons-to.html

Here is a little tidbit that I did to find the proverbial needle in the haystack when it comes to locating the code to place the Google Buzz code behind.  

Step 1)  Open up a MS Word document
Step 2) Copy the blogger code and then paste it in the Word document
Step 3) Do a Find search for this code:

Step 4) Paste the code for the Google Buzz icon
Step 5) Preview your blog to see if it worked, if not, clear your edits.

Good Luck!
Chuck

How do you get your news?

How do you get your news?  Where do you get it?  That was a pretty good topic I picked up in the news this week.  But where did I get that juicy tidbit?  Well, it first grabbed my eye on a news site that I read fairly regularly.  Then, I found another link while looking up what was new in the Social Media portion of Mashable.  The article I found reference a Pew Internet study that showed 75% of adults (2,259 people in the study) get their news online; either through social networking sites or forwarded to them on their phones/pda's.  The study also found that over 50% (52% actually) use the same media to pass the same news along.

So, where do you get your news from?  Do you get it from a single source?  Do you get it from multiple sources?  Do you watch TV, read newspapers, online news source, a news aggregator site, RSS feeds, or video clips of news?  Have you even wondered or thought about where you get  your news?  To be honest, I never gave it any thought until this week.  It's hard for me to get my news via my phone because we aren't allowed to bring portable electronic devices in to work.  So I find myself scouring the online news sites.  Some are news aggregators, but primarlily from established news gathering organizations. 

I do have a subscription to a newspaper.  I guess I am old school in that regard.  But I enjoy the newspaper for what it gives me and my wife.  It gives her the weekly and weekend sales ad's.  It gives us news that is local to this area and stories of people, businesses, and events that I generally do not seek out online.  As a matter of fact, most national news usually gets it start from a local newspaper or local TV station, so if you don't get the newspaper, maybe you should reconsider.

At any rate, thanks for checking in on my blog.  If you would like to read the article, just click here.

The DoD reverses course on Social Media ban

Well, it certainly looks official enough, from the Memorandum for Record from the Deputy Secretary of Defense, dated 25 February, 2010.  The Directive-Type Memorandum (DTM) is titled Responsible and Effective Use of Internet-based Capabilities.  The DTM can be found here.  To smmarize the message, effective immediately, all of the unclassified networks (also known as NIPRNET) shall be configured to all access to these "internet-based capabilities."  Now, before everyone starts to jump for joy, there are some caveats in the DTM.  First and foremost, military commands have the ability and responsibility to protect and defend the network from attack and malicious code, along with restricting or preventing access to these sites if the bandwidth becomes constrained or to preserve military operations.  Also, sites will be denied that provide access to prohibited content; such as, gambling, hate-speech, pornography, etc.

There is an attachment to the message that spells out the types of social networking services (SNS) applies to.  It applies to:
SNS
Image and video web hosting services
Wikis
Personal, corporate or subject-specific blogs
Data mashups (aggregation sites)

This is certainly good news for me.  I hope that this ban will now allow me and the rest of my classmates at the University of Alabama's Interactive Technology Masters Degree program and who are in the US Military be able to access the wiki, social bookmarking sites (delicious), email, video sites, that we need to for our course work.  I hope that the word reaches everyone.  So please help me spread the good news.  The DoD finally understands the importance of web 2.0 and social media.  I wonder what's next?  Ya'll have a good day.  Roll Tide!

Thanks to Ben Parr for posting the story on Mashable

What's the buzz about Buzz

Howdy y'all,
How is everyone doing? It's Valentine's Day, the Daytona 500 and a day to begin blogging about Buzz. What is it? What's the buzz about Google Buzz? Google Buzz is something that Google unleashed on February 9th, as part of gmail that allows you to share your thoughts, multimedia, photos, updates, whatever within your social media feeds by way of your gmail. You can share your thoughts both publicly or privately, you decide. So essentially, your network is your address book (initially).

Google buzz is pretty much already set up for you if you have and use Gmail. If you have gmail friends, then you automatically have a Buzz follower. The buzz about Buzz is that it will pull images from links, play videos and let you scroll through pictures. Since it's a Google product, it's already hardwired to work instantly with Picasa, Google Reader, and yes, even Twitter.

If you post something in Buzz, you will get replies back in your In-box. As you reply and recommend things to your little community of friends or group, you will also see their recommendations. So, will Google Buzz gain traction with the "early adopters" of technology? Only time will tell, but Google seems to be gaining some serious traction. You have an immediate social network of followers via your gmail account the habitual habit of checking your email throughout the day. So what's left to learn? Oh, it works on your phone too! So what are you waiting for? Go get Buzzed!

If you would like to see some stagering numbers as to Buzz and it's game changing uniqueness, go no further than:
http://mashable.com/2010/02/14/google-buzz-column/
or watch a video about Buzz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi50KlsCBio