Web News for the Week ending 1-24-2009

Every week I scan and read a number of great internet-related news stories. They may be specific to online marketing, web design, website development or the global internet-sphere that we live in. I have always wanted to do a recap of “tidbits” for your reading pleasure. Let me know how this works for you.

Big Agency exec uses Social Media to talk smack about his biggest client’s home town – Looks like once again my statements from last month are holding true. Traditional ad agencies really don’t understand how to use many new forms of Social Media. More so, in this case, James Andrews from Ketchum in Atlanta didn’t think his Twitter “tweet” would make him look like such a fool in cyberspace. (Don’t worry, I gave him a shout out too)

“dwightz @keyinfluencer I did a post on your FedEx mishap to share with my clients on the “values” of social media.”

“dwightz @keyinfluencer thanks for reinforcing my feelings on traditional agencies lacking to learn, but sell new online marketing & what a joke they are”

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Using Twitter for shopping and reviews – what a new great tool this is and reinforces how it is replacing general search.

Last year I was at PubCon in Las Vegas. I had waited too long to book my room and get the discounted conference rate. Enter search.twitter.com or www.whostalkin.com or www.twingly.com. A few combinations of hotel name plus “discount,” “promotion,” “code,” and “sale” produced a Web promotion code that resulted in a better rate than the conference was offering.

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Obama’s inauguration has people using Twitter more – 5X more during the show! – The historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president had people flocking to social networking sites, like Twitter and Tumblr, to comment, share and take in the reaction of people around the world. Instead of sitting and watching, people could be virtual historians, reporting in from the actual event or recounting reactions around the globe.

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Lisa Barone (now with WeBuildPages, ex Bruce Clay SEO) is now (finally…!) following me on Twitter. I never asked, never even really talked to her except at the occasional show. Maybe it’s LinkXL? Maybe she is not all “White Hat” over at WBP like Jim states they are now? Maybe she is stalking me because Detroit is the new “hot spot” and upstate NY is not so attractive in winter?…. Lisa? Wanna chime in?

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Newspapers still struggle with traditional media – Gannett tells employees they need to take a week of unpaid leave to help out the financial situation of the papers. Detroit also receives another unwelcome slam in comparison to how newspapers are looking for funding to survive.

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Hef and Playboy are downsizing too – Playboy Enterprises just announced that it’s downsizing its New York office and transplanting its magazine staff to Chicago. Traditional magazines don’t get as much readership as they used too anymore…

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Sirius-XM Jacks Up Rates, Charges For Music Site – Sirius-XM Radio hopes to increase revenues by raising rates on certain customers–namely, subscribers who want to open multiple accounts. The satellite radio broadcaster is also ending its free Web-based music service.They will begin charging $8.99 per month for extra accounts opened by customers in addition to their initial subscriptions. Using the “Family Plan” option, subscribers can open extra accounts when they want to add another satellite radio receiver to their service. Previously, each additional account under the Family Plan cost $6.99; the company is imposing a $2-per-month price hike.

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Go Short in Email – According to a new study by Epsilon on the importance of the subject line in an Email promotion, shorter subject lines do generally perform better than longer ones, but the relationship between subject line length and response is weaker than previously thought. Though the research showed that, overall, shorter subject lines correlate with higher open rates and click rates, subject line word order, word choice, and brand and audience awareness are also critical success factors.

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Job Search Engines are HOT – Desperate times call for job search engines. That’s how comScore explains today’s news that job search was the fastest growing search category in the U.S. in 2008. Visits to job search engines grew by more than 51% in 2008 to 18.8 million visitors, comScore says

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Facebook trying to lure former Googlers – Google’s loss is Facebook’s gain as a pair of go-getting recruiters from the social networking giant have taken advantage of recent Googler cuts by sending out an email to laid off employees reminding the out of work techies that Zucks and co. still have the “Help Wanted” sign out. Hmm, do you think the Facebook welcome wagon includes martinis, mini corn-dogs and super pokes galore? Take a peek at the Facebook Emails to Googlers

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Updated “Joy of Sex” to hit stands – Ummm, is this web related? Hell’s ya! The famous long-standing book on the “joy of Sex” is being updated and re-released. If the very hairy men featured in your 70’s-era edition of “The Joy of Sex” have been inspiring you to go to the bikini waxer more than the bedroom, today’s your lucky day! Although the sex manual inspired by every homemaker’s standby “The Joy of Cooking” has been criticized for its none-to-scientific tone, readers will be interested to know that a guy’s ejaculate contains about five calories and a squirt of vitamin C and that breakthroughs in psychology, physiology and medicine have been included in the 2009 edition. I’m sorry to say, though, that the section on “open relationships” has gone the way of the polyester pants suit and LPs.

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Great post on “Cost per Lead with Online Marketing” – I preach this, that it should be followed, tracked and analyzed again and again when your spending $$ online to generate business. Read it- learn it- live it.

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SEO is not dead. Hail to the glory days and the future! Its only the beginning folks!

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Welcome Chris Sylvester to following DwightZ on Twitter.

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Sergey Brin’s Space Travel is Over – for now... – Google co-founder Sergey Brin will have to find another way to hitch a ride to where little green men reside after the Russian space agency announced plans to shut down its tourist flights to the space station at the close of 2009. Brin had a trip booked for 2011, but may have to settle for a half-assed, six minute trip to space with fellow billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

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Paid Links products LinkXL and InLinks get a praise and finger – Matt Cutts chimes in, once again on buying links to help with your search engine rankings. This time over at TechCrunch in response to the new InLinks product, which is a carbon copy of LinkXL. (yes, it may be a little biased on InLinks vs. LinkXL however they did replicate to a large part our concepts of hidden footprints for text links and automation of placement)

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Google slaps Video Bloggers for keyword stuffing (2001 all over again, old-skool SEO makes a comeback!) – After a final rush of development activity at Google HQ where they pulled an all nighter in the Labs a statement was released this evening by Matt.

“Blackhat SEO techniques are the bane of our lives at Google and it has been brought to our attention that after year’s of work from the Google team our endeavors have to take a new twist. We recently started indexing Video posts and have been very concerned with the results from some authority figures using ’Keyword stuffing’ and other subliminal techniques to hypnotize their visitors into action’s that they would not normally take like buying that blogger’s latest sensational ebook!”

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I made #2 place in my Poker tournament. I rock and was taken down by a Jack 9 to my Jack 8.

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Seems to be a Pay Freexe over at Yahoo now. Stock options and Bonuses not included. (Yippee)

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Digg does a Dugg too – Ever since Digg launched it’s Recommendation Engine, it has been looking for ways to use the data it is collecting. Yesterday morning, after some complaints and issues with a few minor ’token invalid’ errors, a new feature was added to the Digg article/comment pages. Before the change, Digg would show other content that was ’related by keyword under the current submission and above the comments.

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Another technology competitor in Detroit has given’ up a new DwightZ follower – Welcome Paula Anderanin of BosDev. (ya, its a no-follow too)

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Twitter for Latinos “Twitteros!” – Cool name and looks like fun.

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That’s it for now- tell me if this was good, fun or a waste of your brain energy.