Kubalek Internet Solutions

WHOIS Privacy Considered “Material Falsification"

2010-03-12T18:00:00.004-06:00

A recent decision by the Court of Appeals for the 9th CircuitBy Ryan Sadler, Legal Team, SEDO

A recent decision by the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has determined that using WHOIS privacy on domains may be considered “material falsification” under federal law. The defendants in US v. Kilbride (9th Cir., 2009) were convicted under the CAN-SPAM Act in a case that involved criminal charges of intentional email spamming. Enacted by the US Congress in 2003, the CAN-SPAM Act prohibits false or misleading transmission information, deceptive headers, and requires email solicitations to give an easy opt-out method and be labeled as an advertisement, including the senders physical post address. Commercial emails that use false or misleading headers, or violate other CAN-SPAM provisions, such as falsified registration information, are subject to fines of up to $11,000 for each unsolicited email sent.

The CAN-SPAM act states that “registration information is materially falsified if it is altered or concealed in a manner that would impair the ability of a recipient of the message…to identify, locate, or respond to a person who initiated the electronic mail message…” The defendants argued that since the terms “impair”, “materially falsify” and “conceal” are not defined in the statute they should be considered unconstitutionally vague. The court responded to the defendants’ assertion by clarifying that “when Congress does not define a term in a statute, we construe that term according to its ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.” The court then made it clear in their ruling that the defendants’ use of private WHOIS information in this case materially falsified the registration information. The court declared that “It should have been clear to the defendants that intentionally falsifying the identity of the contact person and phone number [through WHOIS privacy] for the actual registrant information constitutes intentionally decreasing the ability of a recipient to locate and contact the actual registrant, regardless of whether a recipient may still be left some avenue to do so. We therefore conclude defendants had notice that their conduct violated the CAN-SPAM act.”

Although the ruling does not make use of WHOIS privacy illegal, it does serve as a clear message from the court that coupling the use of privacy services with intentional spamming will likely result in a violation of the CAN-SPAM act. This is an important decision that members of the domain community should refer to prior to utilizing a privacy shield.

Kindle Goes Global!

2009-10-13T15:07:00.007-05:00

For those of us who spend too much time on subways and in airports, this is big, exciting news! First, the bestselling Amazon Kindle is now $259, down from $299.

Second, Amazon is introducing a new addition to the Kindle family of wireless reading devices: Kindle with U.S. and International Wireless. The newest Kindle can ship to customers around the world.

With this new Kindle, you can receive your books, newspapers, and magazines wirelessly while at home or abroad in over 100 countries. If you are like me and travel constantly, you can now just think of a book and be reading it in less than 60 seconds.

The $259 Kindle with U.S. Wireless is available for immediate shipment, and the $279 Kindle with U.S. and International Wireless can be preordered today for delivery starting in two weeks.

Kindle utilizes the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so you never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Unlike cell phones, there are no monthly wireless bills and no yearly contracts. There is no software to install, and no syncing required.

Kindle is as thin as most magazines and weighs less than a paperback—but can hold 1,500 books. Its electronic-ink screen looks and reads like real paper with no glare—even in bright sunlight. A long battery life means you can read for up to two weeks on a single charge.

The U.S. Kindle Store has more than 350,000 books, including 107 of 112 New York Times bestsellers, plus top newspapers, magazines, and blogs.

Woo-Hoo! Google Wave is Coming right at us

2009-09-29T14:09:00.004-05:00

Google’s anticipated real-time communication platform launches in less than 24 hours. That’s right, we’re talking about Google Wave. .

What we already know: On September 30th,Google will send out 100,000 invites to Google Wave. Since it’s already September 30th in Australia (where theGoogle Wave team is located), that means the invites will flood inboxes very soon.

The communication tool incorporates real-time updates, wiki-style functionality, extensions, playback, and many more features in an attempt to redefine how we communicate. Some call it an email killer, others think it’s too ambitious for its own good.

Because the launch is so hotly anticipated, Google decided to give everyone an update on the impending rollout:

“Starting Wednesday, September 30 we’ll be sending out more than 100,000 invitations to preview Google Wave to:
- Developers who have been active in the developer preview we started back in June
- The first users who signed up and offered to give feedback on wave.google.com
- Select customers of Google Apps
We’ll ask some of these early users to nominate people they know also to receive early invitations — Google Wave is a lot more useful if your friends, family and colleagues have it too. This, of course, will just be the beginning. If all goes well we will soon be inviting many more to try out Google Wave.”

In less than 24 hours, Wave will be in the hands of 100,000 early adopters and developers. We’ll be there to cover it all. Hold onto your hats: Wave is approaching fast. http://wave.google.com

Live Streaming Twitcam (No, this is not X-rated)

2009-07-24T18:45:00.008-05:00

I tested TwitCam today, a new Twitter-based video broadcasting service launched by Livestream which lets anyone with a Twitter account stream their own "show," complete with live chat.

Great idea, but I'm seeing some room for improvement. My biggest issue was that I was "LIVE!" just about the moment I logged in. No time to run for lip gloss, much less to put clothes on over the underwear I was working in.

I don't say this often, but this is perhaps too easy, and since most users these days have imbedded webcams, the first step is automatically eliminated:

Connect your webcam

Click the broadcast button

Here is how it works. As you are broadcasting your video, tweets arrive from your followers via Twitter and are displayed to the right of the webcam where you are broadcasting. When someone replies to one of your tweets (the tweet must include the link to the show), the app counts it as a reply and it is posted for everyone watching your TwitCam stream to read.

All of this, video and tweets, is captured and archived. Since each page created gets its own URL, users can come back to at any time to watch the video. And if you aren't ready you get video'd and archived whether you want to be or not.

Given that I was testing products half-clothed and there is no "stop video" button to be found on the site, I was forced to run screaming from my laptop almost immediately (not really, actually I just X'd out but it sounds way more interesting) . Still, way to chase off your users, TwitCam.

I'm excited to see that Livestream plans to include this product in an API that will be released in the near future, leaving the door open for others to build a similar service with their own branding and audience tools. Very cool.

No sign up required

100% Free (ad supported)

No software required

Handles up to 100,000+ viewers

Share your broadcast on other social networks.

I wasn't able to stay long so I'll continue testing and will get back to you with more...er...after I have dressed, and have done hair and makeup.

Google Chrome Rocks

2009-07-24T17:09:00.004-05:00

I have four browsers on my computer but I've used IE as my primary browser for years, not anymore. This past week I revisited Google Chrome and wow, what a difference. The browser loads considerably faster especially when used with iGoogle Desktop and Google gadgets, tools and apps. Passwords are stored much more efficiently and I never have to re-enter things like Ido on IE. Chrome is clean, fast and easy to use. I recommend it!

My second choice is Safari for Windows. I like the clean, bold style, but it doesn't work well with my webmail, so it is impossibly to fully implement.

Third choice, Firefox. I love Firefox, but the constant updates feel like too much of an annoyance and I find that I'd rather just not open Firefox, than have to hear all about how many updates I need to download.

And then there is IE. Gotta have it because no matter how much I hate Microsoft products, IE is still by far the most used web browser out there.

Down for everyone or is it just me?

2009-07-14T18:02:00.001-05:00

How many times have you not been able to get to a site and asked yourself,

Is it down for everyone or just me?

Well, here's the answer.

Love it!

Wanna Be Writers Wanted!

2009-07-04T09:10:00.000-05:00

I have a client who is advertising Mexico homes and property for sale and is accepting homes and property for sale listings from individuals and agents/brokers in Mexico.

The advertising is free. You get exposure online and many listings are featured in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner, The Washington Post and more.

When and if the company refers a potential buyer to you, you agree to pay a .5% (of sales price) referral fee. If you don't sell your house, you are out absolutely nothing! Seems reasonable to me. There's no limit on how many listings you can submit, but each must include complete description and a minimum of 5 recent, color photos.

We are building an online interface to allow you to upload properties, but for now, please send your "home or property for sale" listings to me directly and i will forward them on.

Happy House Selling!

Kubalek Internet Solutions | Fast Company

2009-06-02T22:23:00.001-05:00

Kubalek Internet Solutions Fast Company

The Vendor Client relationship - in real world situations

2009-05-28T10:56:00.004-05:00

If it won't work in the browser, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY

If I had a dime for every (quickly fired) client who talked like the guy in the video store. Kills me. Nothing I hate more than the slick willy guy trying to be my "buddy." "This is not a challenge, this is an opportunity!" YYCH, get OFF me.

But my favorite part has to be end, when they bring the chef out and tell him, "Ok, we'll pay this this time, but we're gonna need you to show us how you made it, so we can make it in-house next time." Hysterical. And yeah, we've heard it!

We like Jott - we weren't even paid to promote this.

2009-05-23T13:07:00.004-05:00

If you know me, you know I hate phones. Hate talking on the phone, and "lose" my cell phone whenever possible. I charge clients to call me, because I just hate it that much. I've been called "elusive," "too busy," (and much worse) because getting me to pick up the phone without a scheduled appointment is nearly impossible.

I also hate recommending products when I'm not getting referral dollars or a free month of service or some other friendly thank you. So I must really like Jott. Yep, this one I am recommending purely because it is so helpful.

Jott Voicemail turns your voicemail messages into text and delivers them as text messages and emails that are actually useful. You can forward and reply to them, screen calls when you're in meetings, set call-back reminders and more.

How does it work?
With Jott Assistant and Jott for Salesforce, you just call a simple phone number, speak your notes, messages, or updates and hang up. Jott Voicemail works the same way, but your friends, family, and colleagues are the ones leaving the messages when they call your number. Then, Jott takes the spoken messages, turns them into text, and sends them to the right destination via email, text message, or web update.

Jott Assistant - "With one punch of a button, I give Jott a call, dispatch a message to my entire crew, all at once. It saves me a tremendous amount of time and money. It's absolutely invaluable"
--Linda, Jott Assistant user and Landscape small business owner

"Jott Voicemail is an amazing productivity tool for me. I used to fret in meetings that I was missing important calls. Now they show up as text messages. The callback reminder feature is great too. I never forget to call people back."
--Henry, Jott Voicemail customer and Healthcare business owner

"Jott created a custom application for us very similar to their Salesforce integration.
We use a different CRM system, but the Jott integration has helped us make sure
account data is up to date. Our sales employees and managers both love it."

Very cool!

http://www.jott.com/

I confess, I've done this, too!

2009-05-23T13:06:00.002-05:00

Brochure Writing Tips

2009-05-11T15:11:00.002-05:00

Start with an “About Us” section
Does your business have a unique story? Tell potential customers about you, why you started your business, and how long you’ve been working in the industry. Do you have a mission statement? Describe what makes you and your business special.

Give an overview of your products or services
Explain how your products or services will benefit the reader. Do you offer personalized service, low prices, high quality? Explain what makes you and your business so unique.

Stay Positive
Instead of pointing out what others do wrong, point out what you do right. By staying positive, you communicate strength and confidence.

Include an offer and tell your readers to take action
Give your readers a good reason to act now. For example: “Call today and save 50% off your first appointment!” Or try giving them a tear away coupon or promo code to access a special page on your website.

Contact information
Don’t forget to include all of your company’s key contact information: name, address, phone number, e-mail address and Web site.

Use customer testimonials
One of the best ways to build trust with potential customers is to share positive feedback from your existing customers. A few short quotes of praise about your business will add to your credibility and help new customers feel secure about doing business with you. If you don’t have testimonials, you can call attention to awards you may have won or list your local business affiliations.

Get Yourself Twittering

2009-03-30T21:58:00.003-06:00

There's a lot of buzz right now about Twitter, which has emerged as one of the most popular social media tools.

What Is Twitter?
Twitter is a social media tool that lets users send out short messages (or "tweets") that are picked up and read by anyone who decides to follow you. This is also referred to as micro-blogging. I like the idea of keeping your message down to 140 characters, because it forces you to be succinct and to the point.

Some have started a Twitter account, sent out a message or two, and then wondered what the big deal is. The big revelation to me came when I found all of the supporting applications and tools that were an adjunct to the Web site. Once you start using some of these tools, the light bulb will go off and you'll find many uses for Twitter. Here are a few:

Personal promotion and broadcasting
Business promotion and broadcasting
Reputation/brand monitoring
Competition monitoring
Event monitoring
Information gathering/research

Setup
The mechanics of setting up Twitter is relatively straightforward. Just go to Twitter's site and click the Join button. But before you do, it's important that you take time to consider a few things before you send out your first "tweet."

First, think about what you want to accomplish and how you want to be perceived. What is your brand strategy, personal or business?

When picking a user name, consider using your name or your company's name instead of a nickname. This will allow people to know who you really are. This is important if you're interested in branding yourself or your company. Also, a real name or company name allows people to find you easier.

Here are some tips about setting up your Twitter account
Personal Bio: Consider what to use as your profile description. Again, Twitter forces you to keep it short -- 160 characters, to be exact. Use a couple of professional statements (or more) followed by a personal statement. For example, my bio is: "Internet Marketing Specialist, Trainer, Speaker, Columnist and Avid Cyclist."

Regardless, let people know who you are and what you do so potential followers have enough information to decide if they want to follow you.

Profile Picture: Please take the time to get a real picture of yourself or company logo. You won't be taken seriously if you use the default picture. Think of how you want to be perceived. A professionally shot photo of yourself can go a long way to promoting your personal brand. Smile and give followers some insight into your personality, be creative. Headshots stand out more when your picture has to be condensed down to fit within some applications.

Background Picture: Next is your background picture. Twitter has some template backgrounds you can use. Pick something that is contextual to your brand strategy. Create your own if you really want to stand out. If you do, remember that people use various screen resolutions, so you need to make it big enough so it doesn't tile. Also, Twitter doesn't give you much space for your bio, so you can use the left side of your custom background picture to display more information about yourself, like your blog or another related Web site.

Following and Listening
You're almost ready to start tweeting. But first, here are a couple more things to consider.
Find people who have similar interests to you and "follow" them. In the top menu, select "find people" and search for friends or companies you'd like to follow. Now look at all of those tiny picture icons representing people they're following. Click "view all" to see the entire list. Click on anyone you'd also like to follow. In short order, you'll be following 30 to 40 people. At this point, just take the time to "listen" to the conversation. See what's being said and how it's said.

Building Relationships
Before you begin tweeting, think about your conversation and what you can provide your followers that will give them value. You're basically building relationships. To do so, you need to give before you receive.

People like tips, statistics, opinions, and links to relevant articles. Once you have a good handle on your messages, tweet away.

And feel free to follow me at twitter.com/kubalek.

Let's meet for brunch and not talk to each other

2009-03-26T18:20:00.003-06:00

It is fascinating to me to observe the impact of technology on face0to-face society.

Last month, while waiting for friends to arrive for brunch at the Arte Cafe on the Upper West Side , I watched this poor (adorable!) guy struggle when his date pulled out all of her communication devices. Cell. Blackberry. Iphone.

Then they played this game. He was attentive, animated, warm and friendly. She was distracted, didn't look him in the eye, and immediately began answering urgent text messages pretty much every time he opened his mouth to talk. He really looked like a nice, good guy--hell, I wanted to go out with him!--and I was fascinated at his pained expressions--and at how struggled to suppress his frustration with her outrageously rude behavior. This gal must be great in bed, I thought, because she sure as hell isn't a fun date.

So back to the game. He'd open his mouth, she'd grab a device and start clicking away, he'd throw up his hands, she'd say, "just wait," and he would, quietly, then she would put down the device and then - they'd start the game all over again.

At one point, during his time to be quiet and wait, he caught me observing them and shrugged. We had this unspoken communication that said, "what the F is up with this dingbat girl?" I think he was grateful that someone else was seeing it, too. She was so clueless to how incredibly rude her behavior was.

Fascinating. "Social networking."

Building a volunteer promotion army with Flickr

2009-03-21T15:55:00.002-06:00

One thing you may not know about Flickr is that unless you have a Flickr Pro account, there are restrictions for how many people you can message. A quick $25 takes care of this and is well worth the cost.

Case Study. Client owns a travel portal and uses publicly licensed images of the area from flickr. With a Pro account in hand, our team is able to contact each of the photographers whose photos are being used. An email was sent out giving them a friendly heads up that their photos were being used and inviting them (and their friends) to come leave reviews on the actual shot locations. And the photographers did leave reviews. They also began promoting the content. Or more accurately, they began promoting themselves. They blogged about the San Miguel de Allende and the portal site that used their photos. They linked to it. They sent traffic to it. They became the best promotional army you could ask for because they were feeding into one of the most basic human instincts there is—the need to be more famous and more recognized than the person standing next to you.

The result?

Thirty-five or so links to the main site (and that number goes up every week), to the directory and to other interior pages. All from connected and well-linked travel sites.

Real foot traffic.

A more linkworthy directory thanks to the incorporation of expert photos, thus making it easier for the marketing team to market and build more links to.

It became a success story for how to do something interesting and gain links in a very natural way.

Search Engine Data Report

2009-03-14T15:26:00.001-06:00

Bye, bye, AOL.

Americans conducted 13.1 billion searches at the core search engines, down 3 percent from January. Google Sites handled 8.3 billion core searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.7 billion and Microsoft Sites with 1.1 billion.

Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in February with 63.3 percent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites (20.6 percent), Microsoft Sites (8.2 percent), Ask Network (4.1 percent) and AOL LLC (3.9 percent).

http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-13-2009/0004988359&EDATE=

How would you describe twitter in 140 characters or less?”

2009-03-10T16:05:00.000-06:00

BrettfromTibet: Twitter is where instant messaging meets social networking

rabeidoh: Twitter is IM on hyperdrive. Instead of reaching only one person, you can interact with thousands.

thomsinger: Twitter is an experience only understood once experienced. It is both blog and IM rolled into an addictive communal ritual

Rhea : My tiny blog, but posts and comments get lumped with everyone’s. News, gossip, personal, fun finds; Twitter is my brain dump.

dedmond29: for me: conversations, insights, information and discoveries. The more I contribute, the more I get back.

audette unparalleled access to influencers & colleagues, economy of words makes value easy to distinguish, and it’s pretty damn fun!

lauracallow is an interactive online playground for the socially connected where rapid fire communications are inspired, shared & stored.

Honorable mention to the cheeky ciaranj: Twitter is a mix of kind of cool, really? WTF? & insanely interesting

RP - http://searchengineland.com/twitter-wrote-this-column-for-me-13889

Caution with Google Chrome.

2009-03-06T19:23:00.000-06:00

There are significant privacy issues with it. On the whole, Google is great but like Microsoft before it, the Geniuses at Google are perhaps getting a bit big for their britches. They are really collecting a lot of your data. Some it, you just accept. For example, I twitter and all tweets are indexed by Google. But when you use Chrome, unless you opt out, Google stores and has access to all of your searches as a "service" to you (--and them).

Also, the auto-complete URL feature is created by querying the search engine as you type urls, and that behavior and search is also stored and used by Google. Google collects this data as yet another data point for user behavior. It has been awhile since I've read any news on it, but as recently as last September, many reviewers and watchdogs had gone so far as to call Chrome essentially a keylogger.

Twitter

2009-03-01T13:38:00.003-06:00

Truth be told, I hate blogging. And myspace. And most social networking, actually. It seems to encourage a self-centered egotistic way of thinking. Hey, if you want to be SOCIAL, go out into the real world and contribute to it, exchange with it, be a part of it. That is social. But don't make the mistake of thinking that anyone really cares that you are at home, at your computer, typing in witty things to broadcast to a bunch of strangers who probably don't even fully understand why they should care about what you are doing. I dunno... And Twitter is like Blogging Lite. The diet version. Instead of writing 3-5 paragraphs of reasonably meaningful text a few times a week, now you can text a couple hundred characters and be done with it. Hmmmm...Doesn't sound very social to me.

I've been watching Twitter for about a year, and am testing it more and more but am still not quite seeing the practical value for paying clients. I'm skeptical. More soon -

kk

Set Up OpenDNS

2008-10-04T21:21:00.002-05:00

Few of us spend much time thinking about the internet's domain name system: the architecture which invisibly translates a browser's request, like "wired.com," into the numeric IP address where the site is hosted.
Yet, despite being largely transparent, the DNS system is not without its problems. Security researcher Dan Kaminsky recently discovered critical a vulnerability in some DNS servers. Despite trying to keep the information under wraps until a patch could be released, the attack leaked out and venders scrambled to patch their servers.
The DNS flaw that Kaminsky discovered allows a hacker to conduct a "cache poisoning attack" that could be accomplished in about ten seconds, allowing an attacker to fool a DNS server into redirecting web surfers to malicious web sites.
The problem is, how do you know your ISP has applied the patch? Kaminsky's personal blog has a quick way to check your DNS. To really know, you'd have to watch for an e-mail update or press release. But the news isn't something most venders would want to advertise -- "uh, sorry, but it turns out our servers are insecure and might make you vulnerable to very simple attacks you'll never notice."
Fortunately there is a solution: Bypass your ISP's DNS server and use a service like OpenDNS, which was one of the few DNS venders not affected by this latest bug. Because OpenDNS uses a number of security enhancements above and beyond what your common ISP is likely to employ (like source port randomization) it wasn't affected by the bug Kaminsky discovered.
Not only does OpenDNS offer a more secure setup, it's free, you get a host of advanced features and it just might be significantly faster as well.
Contents[hide]
1 Introducing OpenDNS
2 Getting Started
3 Advanced options
4 Custom router setups
5 Conclusion
6 Suggested readings

Introducing OpenDNS
Put simply, OpenDNS is safer and faster DNS replacement. Set up is not much more difficult than setting up a POP e-mail account and you get quite a few extra features as an added bonus.
OpenDNS provides niceties like spelling correction. For instance, type "wordpres.org" when you meant "wordpress.org" and OpenDNS automatically corrects and redirects. OpenDNS also caches IP addresses so it doesn't have to do a fresh look up every time you request a page, which results in faster load times.
Other power user features include the ability to set network-wide keyboard shortcuts (always heading to the Webmonkey homepage? Set up a keyword shortcut and all you need to type is say, "m" and OpenDNS will take you straight to webmonkey.com), phishing blacklists to keep you out of trouble and IP blocking to prevent users from accessing sites you don't want them visiting.
Getting Started
There are two main ways to set up OpenDNS. First off you can set it up for just a single computer -- if you've only got one PC plugged directly into your cable/DSL modem this would be the way to go.
However, these days most of us probably have some sort of router between the modem and our PCs. Let's take a look at how to set up OpenDNS with a router.
The first step is to sign up with OpenDNS -- don't worry, it's painless and free. Once you have an account you need to configure your router to use the OpenDNS DNS servers rather than the defaults your ISP provides.
Most routers have some kind of web-based configuration panel, for instance, Linksys routers can be accessed at http://192.168.1.1. Check your router's documentation to see where the config screen lives, or consult the OpenDNS site which provides specific instructions for about a dozen different routers.
Once you've logged into your router's config panel, the settings you want to look for are the "Static DNS Server" settings. Chances are those fields are currently blank, but if not, write down your current DNS settings before switching them over to OpenDNS in case you want to return to your old settings for any reason.
Now just plug in OpenDNS's addresses, which are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. If your router has space for more than two addresses just leave the extra spaces blank.
Now save your settings. Your router will most likely reboot and once it's done you should head to the OpenDNS test page and make sure that you are in fact using the OpenDNS servers.
And that's it, you're done.
Advanced options
Now you're safe from the DNS bug and you can login to your OpenDNS account to configure some advanced options (just click the Dashboard link at the top of the site).
The OpenDNS dashboard has links to all the cool features -- setup keyword shortcuts, block domains, see network statistics and even enable dynamic IP updating.
You maybe wondering how OpenDNS makes any money giving all this stuff away. The answer is that every time the site you're looking for doesn't exist (or encounter a DNS error) OpenDNS dumps you on a custom page complete with Google ads. The page also includes a customized Google search page which can be used to search for whatever site you were looking for.
If you are setting OpenDNS up for your company, you can customize the error page with your company's logo or any other branding you want. There are also controls for customizing blocked site messages, phishing block pages and more.
Custom router setups
While OpenDNS is pretty easy to set up and the site has great instructions for most stock routers, what if you're using a custom router firmware like Tomato or DD-WRT? In that case setup can be a little more difficult. With the DD-WRT firmware in particular you may have a little trouble getting it to play nice with OpenDNS.
Fortunately there are some DD-WRT forum posts on the subject and a couple of tips on the OpenDNS site as well. The solution depends on what version of DD-WRT you're using so be sure to have that info on hand before you start searching.
Conclusion
OpenDNS provides an easy way to sidestep the latest DNS bug. Of course there's no guarantee there won't be a flaw in the DNS setup that OpenDNS uses at some point, but at least you'll know about it since you control most of your DNS settings.
And the fact that you get spelling corrections, phishing protection, IP black/whitelists and a faster browsing experience... Well, it's just the icing on the cake.

Camera Envy

2008-09-17T23:41:00.003-05:00

One of my clients, a stock photographer, turned me on to this new camera. Now I want one. The price tag though is completely insane, but I'm leaving it on my wish list anyway. Who knows. Check it out.

Well-Rounded Search Engine Optimization

2008-09-14T19:50:00.001-05:00

Analytics, SEO, paid advertising, branding, reputation management, social networking, viral marketing, and images and videos are some of the most important tactics for small business owners to consider.

Let's talk about a few more elements you should consider when looking at a well rounded SEM campaign: local search, usability, and how to increase conversions. We'll also talk a bit about how to pick and choose what is working and what isn't worth your time.

Local Search

There's some conflicting information out there about local search. Honestly, it seems like every platform works a bit differently. I highly suggest reading "Local Search Ranking Factors," compiled by SMB and local search consultant David Mihm. Some of the best minds in the industry weighed in on the many factors that go into ranking on local search platforms.

Here are some additional tips:

Put your local physical address in text on every page of your site. If you have multiple brick and mortar locations, build a page for each location.
Login, claim, update, and enhance your listings at Yahoo Local and Google Maps.
Optimize key pages on your site for geo-targeted keywords.
Build links from local resources with good anchor text.
Usability

How the shopper interacts with your site and finds the information they're looking for is paramount to obtaining a conversion. With some sites, conversions are full sales that take place through a shopping cart or other e-commerce solution. For other sites, conversions may be a RFP form or signing up for a newsletter.

Whatever your conversion goals, make sure users can understand the point of your Web site and find the conversion paths quickly and easily. It's a wasted effort to drive thousands of clicks a day to a site that performs poorly, doesn't give clear and un-cluttered choices and options, and is aesthetically unpleasing. If your bounce rates from your homepage are over 20 percent, it's time to seriously consider a new design, or at least some testing to tweak what you have into a more user-friendly format.

Think about the actions you want the user to take. If you want them to call you, a great big phone number at the top of the page is going to draw the eye and encourage them to pick up the phone. If you want them to click through to your inventory search, make the button or link prominent and easy to find. This doesn't mean adding blinking text, glittery backgrounds, or other obnoxious movement on the page. Movement on a page should be limited to a slideshow of images that doesn't interfere with text on the page and other things the user will need to make a shopping decision.

Increasing Conversions

What it really boils down to for most small businesses is the almighty dollar. Most things take time, and the return can come back more slowly, but your top priority is to make sure a site is converting -- even ahead of building a traffic base.

I attended a session on marketing during a recession at an advanced SEM conference earlier this month. Every panelist agreed that the first marketing dollar should be spent on making sure you've done your on-site homework. The first step toward fixing your conversion roadblocks: know where they are. Having analytics is just as important as SEO for your Web site. You'll have no idea what you're doing if you have no way to measure it.

Mining analytics data is an important component to understanding conversion roadblocks. Digging into the meat of your data will help you understand what you can improve. Look at how many people are hitting your homepage and where they're going from there -- are they leaving, or going to pages you really don't want them on (e.g., privacy policy, sitemap, etc.)?

If your visitors aren't going where you want, make the path much clearer. Eliminate links that don't end in an action. You can provide information to folks via the navigation in second and third tier pages. Throwing a link to every single page on every single page is going to confuse, and convolute the buying process. Make it clear, give them some breadcrumb navigation so they can move back and forth through the process if they're looking for particular information. But make sure all of the paths you develop through your site end in a conversion opportunity.

The big question now: how do you as a small business owner act upon it?

Well, it's testing the waters, starting with the basics, and then trying out new things to see what works well for you. Your business model might thrive with paid search, and remain somewhat stagnant with organic search. Success depends upon what you can put into it, what you're doing with it, and what you want to get out of it. The key is to try, analyze, test, and try again until you find something that works.

Branding is Dead; Long Live SEO

2008-09-13T19:55:00.000-05:00

There's been a lot of talk recently about how SEO is dead, and branding will rise out of its ashes. I have to disagree. If anything, branding is the marketing technique on its way out--a victim of how search has changed the way people think and shop, online and offline.

Once upon a time, a consumer had to juggle a lot of information just to make a relative intelligent purchase. In 1991, if you wanted to buy a portable compact disc player, you had to know:
1. What you wanted to buy (portable compact disc player)
2. What brand you wanted to buy (Sony)
3. What product you wanted to buy (Discman)
4. What store to buy it at (The Wiz)
5. Where to find that store (Menlo Park Mall)

Aside from Step 1, every other piece of information came to you from branding. Sony did an amazing job branding the Discman, to the point where it was synonymous with "portable CD player." The Wiz was also an obvious choice based on branding; after all, no one beat it. And Menlo Park Mall was close to my house and it was the mall from Mallrats. If you wanted to research prices, you either had to go store to store (and presumably know which stores to go to) or compare Sunday circulars. To compare products, you needed a copy of Consumer Reports. All that knowledge, or the ways to access it, was put into your head through branding.

Today, it's quite different. Looking to buy a new MP3 player in 2008? With a search engine, that's about all you need to know. A search in Google for "mp3 player" brings up C|Net's MP3 Buying Guide. After reading some reviews, you decide on a flash memory player and then on the Creative Zen 16GB. You might then check out the prices quoted on C|Net, or search for "Creative Zen 16GB" in Google, or in a price comparison engine like Google Product Search or Shopping.com. And you'll likely end up getting the Zen from whichever store has the best price and seems trustworthy.

Branding still matters somewhat. After all, you might recognize the names "C|Net," "Creative" and "Zen." But you didn't find them based on their brand; you found them via search. In fact, the branding that matters the most were those of the tools you used: Google, Google Product Search and Shopping.com.

Search drives the sale; branding only validates it. We've been conditioned by search not to be brand loyal. We may check out Amazon.com for the MP3 Player, but we have no qualms about buying it elsewhere. We have a world of information at our fingertips, and we only need the barest bit of data to access it. Why remember a brand when you can so easily find it again? Even when branding works on us, we validate that branding by searching for the brand in a search engine instead of going straight to the brand's web site. If that branding fully worked, the lucrative field of reputation management would disappear.

So branding isn't exactly dead yet, but in a world where we've been conditioned to use brands as--at most--a secondary measure of a company's worth, and to validate branding through search, it's importance continues to wane. In that world, a world where search still leads the way in driving revenue, SEO cannot die.

Onsite Search

2008-09-10T19:48:00.000-05:00

Onsite search can be a source of information about what is not working on your site. Many searches produce no matching results, indicating a mismatch between visitors' desires and expectations, and the ability of a site to provide relevant content. By taking a careful look at such empty search results, you can identify the type of information that is not effectively being found on your site.

A very common search may also be a candidate for inclusion in the site's permanent navigation. In other words, you may want to enshrine the search result with permanent visibility to help even more people find it (since a small minority of them will bother to use the search function).

Usability Testing

Usability testing can often be done inexpensively and rather informally. After running as few as three subjects through your mission-critical conversion task, you can often uncover significant issues with your landing page.

All you need for this kind of informal approach is a quiet room, a mock-up of your proposed design (possibly just hand-drawn on paper), and a clear task statement (of what you want your subjects to accomplish). You then simply ask the person to talk out loud about their thought process as they work through the task.

Usability Reviews

You don't always have to conduct full-scale usability testing. Hiring usability experts for a high-level review of your landing pages is often a terrific investment.

Usability experts have seen anywhere from dozens to hundreds of poor designs, and have learned to extract subtle commonalities. They can quickly focus on potential problems without even conducting a usability test.

Besides their testing expertise, usability experts also bring an outside perspective and a mandate to uncover problems. Often, organizations that are reluctant to take input from their own staff will listen to the advice of a hired expert.

Focus Groups

Focus groups, like usability tests, draw on people from the target audience. Via a moderated group discussion, insights can be gleaned about user needs, expectations, and attitudes. These findings can be compared to the proposed solution to determine if key elements are missing or incorrect.

Of course, more outgoing and assertive participants can bias focus groups, and the moderator's influence is important. But this is OK because the purpose of focus groups is to provide qualitative information that can serve as input into deciding what to test.

Eye-Tracking Studies

Eye-tracking is particularly useful in detecting problems in the earlier stages of the visitor's decision process (awareness and interest). If most test subjects don't look at the desired part of the page, they aren't even aware that the conversion action is possible. In effect, for these visitors to your site, the conversion action doesn't exist. Such studies are an excellent source of problems regarding page layout, visual presentation of information and images, and emphasis.

Customer Service Reps

Customer service representatives deal with your Web site visitors' problems all day long. Customer service representatives' interactions can lead to valuable information about how to actually fix the underlying problems.

Feedback can be collected in two ways: direct interviews or surveys of your reps, or a review of actual visitor interactions. Chat and phone call logs can be used to classify problems into categories. The prevalence of particular types of problems can be used as an indication of its severity. Such analysis can also point to where on your site the majority of problems originate.

Surveys

Several easy Web-based and telephone surveying methods and companies are available. Surveys among your target population can be a useful source for discovering additional problems with your site.

People who have already completed your conversion action would seem to be the best group to sample. However, you should generally avoid surveys and interviews of existing users. They're biased because they've already made the decision to act on your offer. Randomly sampling a pool of people from your intended target audience is better.

Forums and Blogs

Many industries have specific communities of interest and popular discussion forums. Even if your company isn't a market leader that is mentioned directly in forum posts, you can still gain valuable insight into the concerns and problems of your target audience.

Blogs and public comments about blog postings serve the same kind of communal discussion function. Such venues allow you to gauge the loyalty or frustration of people, their immediate needs, and attitudes toward your industry, company, or product.

If you follow even a couple of these problem-finding ideas, you should be able to quickly identify many potential conversion issues with your site. Now you can come up with improved alternatives for each issue and use these as the basis for your landing page test. Focus on the negative and you're well on your way to higher profits!

Bank of Jackson Hole

2008-09-10T16:21:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite new clients is The Bank of Jackson Hole. Our work so far has been primarily for their new residential mortage division. The folks there are marvelous. If you are in that area and looking for a home, I'd urge you to check then out.

Oh! And did I mention they are "dog friendly?" Gotta love that!