Old: InfoTech Applications in Marketing

Experiment Update: nworbxela

2006-01-04T15:13:00.000-08:00

We are now on day 38 of our search engine experiment. No new posts that included the keyword we posted since day 19, our last report.

There are 125 results in google for nworbxela This blog remains number one on the list of results. Number two seems related to the class wiki (which does not include the keyword), and number three remains Bath Rugby Fans Abroad. Hurricane Katrina is now number 4. Laguna Beach is number 5, and America the Next Rome remains 6. Luxury Automobiles has slipped from 2 out of the top 10.

While my last analysis of the results suggested the keyword in the title and URL was critical, these results only support that for the first result listed. The remainder are listed for other reasons (keyword spam, some version of google bombing etc.) There is no doubt the following effect results in google, but I am not sure what is critical: number of times the keyword appears in the body text; appearance in the title; appearance in the URL; number of links to the site with the keyword in the anchor text; number of links to the site with the keyword included somewhere in the site that links to the site (wiki is an example of this); overall number of links to the site.

There are now 65 results in Yahoo, the one-two-three being This class, Laguna Beach, and Chewy's Movie. The most recent results had this site third, Laguna Beach second and America The Next Rome first, which is now fourth.

Yahoo seems to reward the spamming approach, although the class site, ranked 1 includes the keyword in the URL and title. Yahoo was much slower than google to pick up the keyword and still only has half as many entries listed.

There are now 65 results in MSN. The one-two-three being this class site (number 1 last time), Bath Rugby Fans Abroad (from number 3) and ultimate fighting.

It makes sense this class is number 1 (for the same reasons it is number 1 in the above cases). Number 2 also makes sense, it is a combination of keyword spamming and including the keyword in the URL and title. Number 3 also includes the keyword in the URL and title.

Looking at the 'time-based' blog search engines there are 20 results in technorati, 54 results in google's blog search and 52 results in feedster.

Second Google Experiment: KidsCorner goes from 11 to 1!

2005-12-18T04:56:00.000-08:00

Our second google experiment has resulted in moving my sister's site from 11 to 1 on the keyword phrase outdoor trampolines chester.

That's pretty amazing!

Experiment Update: nworbxela

2005-12-17T15:19:00.000-08:00

We are now in day 19 of our search engine experiment.

There are 71 results in google for nworbxela This blog remains number one on the list of results. Number two is still Luxury Automobiles, and number three also remains Bath Rugby Fans Abroad. Inside Dewey Beach is now number 4. America the Next Rome has now slipped to 6.

Looking at these results it seems including the keyword in the title and the URL gets the best results. This is the case for the top four listed. The fifth, Laguna Beach adopted a tactic closer to 'spamming' the keyword in an entry.

There are now 16 results in Yahoo, the one-two-three being America The Next Rome, Laguna Beach, and this class. Three days ago the first two were reversed.

Yahoo seems to reward the spamming approach more than google at this point of the experiment.

There are now 52 results in MSN. The one-two-three being this class site (moving up from 5th), The class wiki, and Bath Rugby Fans Abroad. Inside Dewey Beach was pushed to 5th from 3rd, with Laguna Beach coming in 4th.

It makes sense this class is number 1 (for the same reasons it is number 1 in google). The class wiki as number 2 is odd. The only explanation I can offer is the number of links pointing to the wiki, from sites that contain the keyword, has pushed this site up the rankings, despite the keyword:

a: not appearing on the wiki, or
b: not appearing as part of the anchor link pointing to the wiki from the sites that contain the keyword.

Numbers 3 and 4 used the spamming approach, whereas number 5 includes the keyword in the title and URL.

Looking at the 'time-based' blog search engines there are 19 results in technorati, 47 results in google's blog search and 30 results in feedster.

Experiment Update: nworbxela

2005-12-14T10:04:00.000-08:00

We are now in day 16 of our search engine experiment.

There are 48 results in google for nworbxela This blog is now number one on the list of results. Number two is Luxury Automobiles, number three is Bath Rugby Fans Abroad, pushing America the Next Rome from number 1 to 4.

There are 9 results on Yahoo, the one-two-three being Laguna Beach, America The Next Rome and this class.

There are 42 results in MSN. The one-two-three being The class wiki, Bath Rugby Fans Abroad and Inside Dewey Beach. This site ranks fifth.

Looking at the 'time-based' blog search engines there are 14 results in technorati, 54 results in google's blog search and 25 results in feedster.

Final exam results e-mailed

2005-12-11T05:23:00.000-08:00

I have sent out an e-mail that includes your result for the final.

Your wiki project work will be graded from thursday, december 14.
Your blog project work will be graded from saturday, december 16.

cheers, alex

Experiment Update: nworbxela

2005-12-09T08:32:00.000-08:00

We are now in day eleven of our search engine experiment and there are 29 results in google for nworbxela This blog is still not included, and according to google's cache has not yet been crawled (explaining the lack of inclusion). This is odd. Google is usually quicker than that! America the Next Rome remains the current top entry. There are 11 results on Yahoo and 29 results in MSN. This site is included in MSN which is reflected in the cache. The following entry pushes Bath Rugby Fans Abroad ahead of others in MSN. The entry, however, is yet to appear in google.

Looking at the 'time-based' blog search engines there are 12 results in technorati, 35 results in google's blog search and 13 results in feedster.

Phishing Example

2005-12-07T10:53:00.000-08:00

I received this e-mail, which is clearly an example of phishing. The giveaway:

The link is to www.amazon.com.encrypted-session128.info - ie the domain is encrypted-session128.info - nothing to do with Amazon.

Here is the e-mail:

Dear Amazon member,
>
Due to concerns we have for the safety and integrity of the Amazon community we have issued this warning.
>
Per the User Agreement, Section 9, we may immediately issue a warning, temporarily suspend, indefinitely suspend or terminate your membership and refuse to provide our services to you if we believe that your actions may cause financial loss or legal liability for you, our users or us. We may also take these actions if we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us.

Please follow the link below:

http://www.amazon.com.encrypted-session128.info?/exec/obidos

and update your account information.

We apreciate your support and understanding, as we work together to keep Amazon market a safe place to trade.

Thank you for your attention on this serious matter.

Regards,
Amazon Safety Department

NOTE: This message was sent to you by an automated e-mail system. Please don't reply to it. Amazon treats your personal information with the utmost care, and our Privacy Policy is designed to protect you and your information.

Quick note on comment spam and our second google experiment

2005-12-06T15:27:00.000-08:00

This comment is trying to achieve similar results as our second google experiment.

Whereas our experiment is designed to try to increase the ranking of Kidscorner.uk.com for the search term outdoor trampolines chester, the comment spam is trying to increase the ranking of instantaudio.com for the search term internet marketing success.

Final: answers and questions

2005-12-06T15:04:00.000-08:00

Answers to these sample questions:

c. search engine ads
d. smaller advertisements are always more effective
c. The number of outbound links from the page contributes to the 'PageRank' score
e. All the above are essential to your SEO strategy
a. has been called the third significant transformation of the retail industry.

A couple of additional questions:

Permission marketing
a. by email is a long-term promotion strategy designed to establish a meaningful relationship with customers.
b. is spam, a short-term promotion strategy.
c. is illegal.
d. is unsolicited commercial email.
e. is an opt-out promotion strategy.

Google hacking is a result of each of the following except:
a. google's ability to recall mass amounts of data
b. including special characters in the search term to refine the search further (i.e. + to include a word; - to eliminate a word)
c. web masters placing files on the public internet that should not be so displayed
d. all the above are conditions present to create the opportunity for google hacking

Example Questions

2005-12-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

Earlier than I had thought, here are a few example questions for the final. I will post the answers later on tuesday along with a couple of additional qestions.

_____ are currently the hottest form of online advertising.
a. Blogads
b. Banner ads
c. Search engine ads
d. Pop-under ads
e. Floating ads

Mobile marketing will become more important for all the following reasons except:
a. the number of mobile devices sold (PDAs, Cell Phones) dwarfs the number of PCs sold
b. mobile devices can be used to market to a consumer using GPS (Global Positioning System)
c. telephone companies can use usage data to target advertisements
d. smaller advertisements are always more effective
e. all the above are reasons for the rapid growth of marketing via mobile devices.

All the following are true about the 'PageRank' algorithm used by Google except:
a. A hyperlink to a page counts as a 'vote of support'
b. The name 'PageRank' is a pun of the name of one of the Google founders
c. The number of outbound links from the page contributes to the 'PageRank' score
d. Not only is the page ranked by the number of pages that link to the page, but also by the value of the pages (with respect to their own PageRank) that link to the page
e. All the above are true with respect to the 'PageRank' algorithm

Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical to your internet marketing program. All the following are essential to your SEO strategy except:
a. Identification of appropriate keyword phrases
b. Inclusion of keyword phrases in the body text of pages of the site
c. Inclusion of keyword phrases in the title tag of each page of the site
d. Network with other sites to ensure links coming into the site
e. All the above are essential to your SEO strategy

The Internet
a. has been called the third significant transformation of the retail industry.
b. has had almost no impact on traditional retailing.
c. has been called the fifth significant transformation of the retail industry.
d. has almost destroyed traditional retailing.
e. has not yet transformed the retail industry but industry analysts are very hopeful that it will in the future.

Experiment Update: nworbxela

2005-12-05T09:25:00.000-08:00

We are now in day seven of our search engine experiment and there are 26 results in google for nworbxela This blog is still not included, and according to google's cache has not yet been crawled (explaining the lack of inclusion). America the Next Rome remains the current top entry. It is also interesting to note there is 2 results on Yahoo and 23 results in MSN. This site is included in MSN which is reflected in the cache.

Looking at the 'time-based' blog search engines there are 6 results in technorati, but 26 results in google's blog search and 9 results in feedster.

A second google experiment: KidsCorner and ''outdoor trampolines chester"

2005-12-05T08:08:00.000-08:00

As we continue with our current google experiment to get the keyword nworbxela to represent all our class blogs I propose a second (somewhat self serving) experiment. My sister runs a kids shop in the UK called KidsCorner. Currently it is ranked 11th on the keyword search outdoor trampolines chester.

Since google uses a PageRank algorithm to help rank order search results it means that sites with links coming in to the site make the site more relevant. And all the more so if the keyword phrase used to link to the site is the same as the keyword phrase being searched (remember the google bomb example).

For our second google experiment, I am asking you to create an entry on your blog that includes the following link: outdoor trampolines chester. Thus the link goes to www.kidscorner.uk.com but the phrase used for the hyperlink is outdoor trampolines chester. Lets see if we can push kidscorner to the first page of results.

Online Course Evaluations

2005-12-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

Please access UD Course Evaluations to complete your evaluation for this course. This site is open through December 8.

Final Study Guide

2005-12-04T10:12:00.000-08:00

What is being tested:

Slides and book chapters from 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12
At least one question from each Wiki Presentation
Skype presentations from David Brown, Donal Reddington and Robert Scoble
For readings it is best to try to understand the readings in the context of the ideas discussed in the book
You do not need to memorize data. Critical to your success in the final (and the course in general) will be your understanding of concepts and terminology

Examples of terminology that may be tested:

Example of blog entries that may be covered:

Wikipedia Interview
Internet Security: Dave Brown; Perfiliate.com (at least 2 questions)
Linux Desktop Standards
Web 2.0 and your project work (at least 2 questions)
A second google experiment: KidsCorner and "outdoor trampolines chester"

Feedback on your Blog

2005-12-03T18:03:00.000-08:00

You should all have received an e-mail with some feedback on your blog project. Examples of blogs that I have identified as looking great include:

If your blog is not listed above, it does not mean I was not enthusistic about it. I only listed a few of those I thought were in great shape. Looking at the above blogs may inspire you for enhancements to your blog.

Experiment Update: nworbxela

2005-12-02T12:30:00.000-08:00

After day four there are 14 results in google for nworbxela This blog is not yet included, and according to google's cache has not yet been crawled (explaining the lack of inclusion). America the Next Rome is the current top entry. It is also interesting to note there is 1 result on Yahoo and 10 results in MSN. Again, according to the MSN's cache this class blog has not yet been crawled. America the Next Rome is also the top result in MSN.

Looking at the 'time-based' blog search engines I was surprised to find there are still no results in technorati, but 21 results in google's blog search and 6 results in feedster.

Project Due Dates Extended

2005-12-02T07:48:00.000-08:00

Given the reality of when I will be able to get things graded I have extended your project due dates.

Your wiki work will be graded AFTER the end of day, Wednesday, December 14.
Your blog work will be graded AFTER the end of day, Friday, December 16.

Blog and its business model

2005-11-30T10:24:00.000-08:00

As I am going through your blogs for some more quick feedback it struck me I may not have been as explicit on the need to add either the Google AdSense program or Amazon Associates program to your blogs. For many blogs, these programs provide the opportunity for the authors to earn revenue from their work, a business model not too disimmilar to traditional media.

Experiment Update: nworbxela

2005-11-29T17:50:00.000-08:00

After day one there are still no results in google for nworbxela

Looking at the 'time-based' blog search engines I was surprised to find no results in technorati, but 15 results in google's blog search and three results in feedster.

Amazon and Wikis

2005-11-29T03:25:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com has recently launched ProductWikis. Another interesting example of how wikis can be used to engage the customer. I was just on amazon buying a couple of books and noticed the ProductWiki link for each of the products I was buying. Clearly there are very few edits thus far, but this might be an interesting use of wikis to follow.

Google Experiment: nworbxela

2005-11-28T09:17:00.000-08:00

I am currently reading The Google Story and am fascinated by the 'power' google has acquired, from an internet marketing standpoint, in such a short period of time. For a fun and quick experiment in terms of getting listed in google, I am asking each of you to include the keyword nworbxela in your blog. You can do this as part of a blog entry about this experiment, include it in your keyword meta tag, or somewhere on your template. As of the time of writing this entry, and not surprisingly, no results were returned for this keyword search. I am curious to see if we can have all our blogs listed under this keyword by the end of the semester.

For the blog that is listed highest under this keyword, I will give the owner a copy of 'Google Story'.

Feedback on a wiki entry: Presentations

2005-11-24T07:04:00.000-08:00

Each of you should have feedback on one of your wiki entries. I added a paragraph to the entry, with the header 'Alex's comments'.

Happy thanksgiving.

Don't forget, presentations begin next week and we have a tight schedule. Each presentation should:

include a 3 'page' powerpoint presentation, which is e-mailed to me before 12 pm the day of the presentation (the one exception is the team of 4)
include each team member who presents one wiki entry to which he / she created (this does not have to be the entry that I reviewed)
be 10 minutes, and will be cut off at 12 minutes
be presented in the order listed here. If your team is first, please come to class early.

I will be offline until sunday PM visiting friends in the UK etc.

Web 2.0 and your project work

2005-11-16T15:38:00.000-08:00

Version 1.1
If I make content edits, it will be reflected in the version number above.
Added content to the Wiki section.

This article serves to put all your project work in true context. The goal of the combination of your work has been to introduce you to Web 2.0 technologies in an active fashion. For the purposes of your project work this includes blogging, RSS, aggregated news readers and wikis.

Blog.
Your blog has enabled you to author a web site that comprises content that is:

'static': side bar content: this includes links to other relevant resources; building community by creating reciprocal links, establishing context (subject matter and author), adding a stats program such as sitemeter to track the number of visits and the referrer link, and creating advertising and affiliate marketing opportunities. The latter serves as a potential business model for your blog.
'active': your entries. Critical issues include the frequency of entries, quality of content, and use of appropriate keywords. These elements are critical to building an audience and for search engine optimization (SEO).
'collaborative': your comments section. You should author posts that lend well to continued dialogue. It is also important to respond to comments to encourage further engagement, and visit the site of the commenter if he / she is a fellow blogger. This helps build community.

SEO is also achieved by including the appropriate keywords in your meta tags and title tag. View the source code of this blog to see the meta tags included in the header section.

Developing your blog has also enabled you to explore HTML and CSS in a safe environment.

Your blog has given you freedom of speech to add your 'voice' to the dialogue that your subject matter creates. This type of communication, where customers truly have the ability to engage in dialogue, was first explored in the Cluetrain Manifesto.

RSS.
RSS (an XML format) is a format that allows a site to push content to subscribers. The web is primarily a pull medium that requires 'viewers' to access sites to discover new content. A subscription-based model, that allows sites to push fresh content out, is preferable for users over having users subscribe to e-mail lists. The subscriber retains control of the experience, and it is spam free. Examples of sites that generate RSS feeds include blogs (blogspot automatically generates a feed); news organizations (BBC, CNN); non profit organizations (Red Cross, University of Delaware) and for profit organizations (IBM, Intel).

News Aggregator.
A feed is only useful if you have a means to subscribe and read the feed. A news aggregator is how you accomplish this. We use bloglines, a web-based aggregator. You can also use desktop-based aggregators. While these 'viewers' are still in their nascent stage of development, forthcoming versions of web browsers will no doubt include a news aggregator. Firefox already does. This may challenge the viability of 'first movers' such as bloglines, but the future of web browsing will include a simple means to subscribe to feeds.

Some of the usability features of news readers include:

they allow you to organize your feeds into categories
you can read content when you wish, rather than when the site updates or when you receive an e-mail
you have the ability to easily distinguish between sites that have new content and those that do not
you can save content to read at a later time

Search Engines: how to search web 2.0
Most searches to your blogs come from the traditional search engines, google and yahoo! Time based engines, those that search RSS feeds, are mostly used by other bloggers interested in discovering the breadth of their space. These engines include google blog, technorati and feedster. Your blog should appear in all these engines. The time based engines should pick up your posts within a few hours. The traditional engines will likely take a few days to 'crawl' your most recent entries. The future of search engines will likely be a combination of the traditional engines and time-based, with a means to do effective local searches. Search engines have also become excellent media vehicles for companies, both by exploiting search engine optimization and creating a pay per click advertising campaign. Blogs themselves have become useful search engine optimization tools for web-sites that incorporate this technology.

Wiki
A wiki enables you to create a space that multiple people can edit and collaborate. Your class wiki enables you to collaborate within your team as you create and contribute to articles relevant to your assigned chapter. Collaboration should allow you to generate a final product that is more robust than if you were its only author. You will likely also be exposed to this type of shared work when you graduate.

We have also explored Wikipedia, the 'most famous' wiki. It is an interesting example of an open source-type model. Wikipedia is a resource to which you can contribute, along with the thousands of other contributors from around the world. You can also link to Wikipedia for word definitions to create greater access for the articles you are authoring, both for your own wiki project and your blog. I have done this throughout this article.

Wikis can also be useful as a collaboration tool between a company and its customers. Channel Nine, from Microsoft, allows non-microsoft developers, interested in developing products for the Microsoft platform, to engage with the Microsoft team. Wikis are also useful for internal knowledge sharing within a company. For example within customer service, the customer service representatives can add to a wiki when they hear new 'issues' directly from customers. The same representatives can then check the wiki as they answer questions for customers. A wiki can also work well within an extranet, where different members of a supply chain coordinate and communicate. Other marketing examples are cited here, and Amazon has recently launched ProductWikis.

Wiki Presentation Schedule

2005-11-16T10:54:00.000-08:00

Monday November 28

Wednesday November 30

Chapter 12 Slides: Promotion

2005-11-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

Are here. These slides may be updated again before class. If this is the case I will edit this entry to let everyone know. If there are further updates, it will only be small updates so printing these out is fine.

Additional Resources for Chapter 12

2005-11-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Wednesday before Thanksgiving Class / Presentation Schedule

2005-11-15T02:43:00.000-08:00

Class the wednesday before thanksgiving is canceled.

Please e-mail me if your group has a preference for the day to present. The two choices are Monday November 28 and Wednesday November 30.

Monday Office Hours Canceled

2005-11-13T03:19:00.000-08:00

I will not be available for office hours this monday (November 14). Class on monday will be a discussion about your projects to date followed by a Skype presentation.

Monday's Skype Presentation: Gourmet Station

2005-11-12T02:45:00.000-08:00

Monday's Skype presentation will be from Donna Miller, owner of Gourmet Station. Donna will present a brief history of the company, its web strategy as it relates to its marketing strategy, the rationale for its blog and some of the successes / learnings thus far. Gourmet Station was recently highlighted in INC Magazine for its "innovative" use of its blog.

Wiki Project: Team Page

2005-11-10T11:47:00.000-08:00

As part of your wiki project, don't forget your team page needs to evolve from a page of separate entries by each team member, to one that reflects the team. An example that looks like it is heading in that direction is the Chapter Five team. Comparing revision 8 and 13 clearly shows the differences between the initial layout and current layout.

Wednesday before Thanksgiving

2005-11-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

I was asked by a few members of the class if we would be canceling the class, the day before thanksgiving. I have not yet decided to do this, but will be encouraged to do so IF each of you has performed at least one edit to one of your team mate's article summaries for your wiki project before class next monday (november 14). Please e-mail me once you have completed this.

As you know, you are responsible for editing four article summaries constructed by your team mates. Each edit needs to either create greater access, add more value, or improve the writing style. Of course each edit can include each and all of these conditions.

Chapter 11 Slides: Place

2005-11-08T11:03:00.000-08:00

Additional Resources for Chapter 11

2005-11-08T09:25:00.000-08:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Monday: Guest Speaker, Dealcatcher.com

2005-11-05T03:03:00.000-08:00

On monday we will have the founders of DealCatcher come to our class and present. They were recently covered in Delaware Today. They will discuss the history of the company, as well as the segment they target, which are price sensitive shoppers.

Additional Resources for Chapter 10

2005-11-02T02:09:00.000-08:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Chapter 10 Slides: Price in the Internet Marketing Mix

2005-11-02T02:07:00.000-08:00

Channel 9

2005-10-31T14:18:00.000-08:00

As referenced by Robert Scoble this afternoon in class, here is Channel 9. We will discuss this site on wednesday.
Related articles:

Blog Images

2005-10-28T13:44:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are considering replacing the blog images from the course blog design to images that align with the theme of your blog, I wanted to let you know the dimensions of the images that you are replacing. You should use images of similar dimensions.
The image in the left hand column: 115 px x 429 px
The image banner across the top: 395 px x 150 px

There is a possibility I may announce a design contest which will include an amazon.com gift voucher for a prize. I have not yet decided.

Cluetrain / Transparency

2005-10-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

I am not sure I have yet really addressed the Cluetrain Manifesto in the class. This has been the launching pad for my new realization of what the internet truly does for marketing. Markets are now conversations, and it is up to businesses to get involved in those conversations and not to hide behind sanitized marketing messages. This and more will be explored with Robert Scoble's presentation on Monday. Robert is the 'Technical Evangelist' at Microsoft.

Wiki Project: Contribution and Grading

2005-10-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in class, I wanted to post some additional guidelines for the wiki project and also define how the project will be graded (it is worth 20% of your final grade).
You will be graded on the quality of:

each of your three article summaries, in their final form (4 points for each summary)
each of the four article summaries to which you contribute that were authored by your team members, in their final form (1 point for each summary)
the final form of your team entry, on the chapter wiki page to which you were assigned (2 points)
the overall quality of your team presentation (2 points)

As I review the final form of your wiki entries, which will be on any date after wednesday, November 30, I will be paying particular attention to the following:

That your team entry and each of your individual entries is 200 words + / - 10%
That the article summaries add value to the learning environment for the class. Examples of this will include identifying new example(s) from the internet that explain a concept that is covered in your particular chapter, and effectively explaining how the example(s) selected tie to the concept you are discussing.
That the article summaries are well written. Thus effective use of english, lack of typos and silly errors.
That the article summaries are accessible. Thus they can be understood and be useful for people with different levels of marketing and internet knowledge. This can be achieved by linking appropriate technical terms to their wikipedia entry for instance.

Happy Birthday E-mail

2005-10-27T11:36:00.000-07:00

E-mail is 34.

Linux Desktop Standards

2005-10-27T11:29:00.000-07:00

Having discussed the open source movement in light of new product development, I thought the following article: Tech firms to tackle Linux desktop standards was appropriate for our discussion. By developing standards, that would be overseen by the Free Standards Group, this enables more software development based on the Linux operating system. As quoted from the article:

The goal of the project is to encourage the development of more applications for the Linux platform, the group said. Developing applications for Linux desktops is a complicated endeavor now because of significant differences between two prevailing versions, called GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) and KDE (K Desktop Environment).

"With this complex and costly development and support environment, independent software vendors may choose not to target the Linux desktop, leading to reduced choice for end users and an inability to compete with proprietary operating systems," the Free Standards Group said in a statement.

Original article found at slashdot

Monday's Skype Presentation: Robert Scoble

2005-10-26T03:20:00.000-07:00

As we continue to explore Skype as a medium to bring in guest speakers, I am excited to remind you that Robert Scoble will be joining us next monday. He maintains the popular blog Sclobleizer, which I encourage you to subscribe via your bloglines account.

Additional Resources for Chapter 9

2005-10-26T02:41:00.000-07:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Chapter 9 Slides: Product in the Internet Marketing Mix

2005-10-26T02:31:00.000-07:00

Additional Resources for Chapter 6

2005-10-24T02:56:00.000-07:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Chapter 6 Slides: Taking Internet Marketing International

2005-10-24T02:53:00.000-07:00

Blog Feedback

2005-10-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

Each of you should have received an e-mail with feedback for your blog. The feedback was on a scale of 0 - 10. The range for the class was 6 - 10. Feel free to stop by during office hours if you have questions regarding the feedback. I am now planning on the following:

Offering one more set of feedback, non-graded, in about two weeks.
Offering to allow you to replace the 'mid term' blog grade with your overall blog grade, if the overall grade is higher than the grade you have received. Thus, with solid blog work for the rest of the semester you can override the grade you received if it was not a great grade.

Overall is it clear you all know how to blog. Some of you were let down due to a lack of content in the sidebar, or less than frequent posts for your blog. Some of you have done fantastic jobs all around!

For the remainder of the semester I will also be looking at your efforts to add 'e-commerce' where appropriate (amazon affiliate for example) and advertisements (google adsense).

Blog Design Tips: Weblog Usability

2005-10-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

I just came across these blog usability tips from useit.com (Jakob Neilsen's site). For the purposes of our class, pay particular attention to tips: 1, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 9. This is for general guidance throughout the remainder of the semester, not for the mid term feedback.

More on Google: Google Bombing

2005-10-20T03:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we mentioned 'google hacking' ... a means to discover 'private' information on the internet that has not been properly secured. Recently I can across the term 'google bomb'. This 'tactic' takes advantage of the algorithm that google uses to push a 'site' higher in a search result, by creating links to the site using a particular keyword phrase (the keyword phrase that you wish the site to be listed on the search result). An example can be seen when searching on the term failure. Google's blog explains this outcome.

Additional Resources for Chapter 5

2005-10-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Chapter 5 Slides: Legal and Ethical Issues; Privacy and Security Concerns

2005-10-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

Editing your StyleSheets

2005-10-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

Working with CSS
Update: A couple of examples:

The purpose of this 'tutorial' is to allow you to better understand how CSS and HTML work together to present web-site content. In order to do this you will learn how to change some of the CSS on your blog and see how this changes the look of your blog.

You will be changing the content between the two tags: <style> and </style>. This code is known as css, or cascading style sheets.

CSS, short for Cascading Style Sheets, is a relatively new feature that is being added to HTML that gives both Web site developers and users more control over how pages are displayed. With CSS, designers and users can create style sheets that define how different elements, such as headers and links, appear, globally (i.e. throughout the web page and the web site). CSS controls the design look essentially taking control of the HTML code it is effecting.

Style Sheets can be applied to any Web page. They can be applied in three ways.

as a separate file that each page within a site points (take a look at the source code of my homepage and you will see the code in the header: <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.udel.edu/alex/css/css.css"
type="text/css" /> this signals this page to be controlled by the stylesheet file named css/css.css).
included as part of the HTML code within each page
included in the header document of the page (as is the example we are using with this blog).

CSS looks really confusing, but with a basic knowledge you could, in theory, amend an existing template to suit your requirements. More knowledge is required for actually writing one from scratch! This is beyond the scope of this course.

Changing the Body

The Body provides base information for the template as a whole, rather than specific areas. In the case of this template it puts in a background (the dots you see across your template) and defines the font and font size used.

This is where you will make your first change.

You will have noticed that the template on the main site for the course (this site) has a different background to your blog site, and it is aligned in the top left hand corner of the screen. To make your site look like this you need to look for the following code in the body element of the template -

Look for the following in the class source code:
/* Body - Refer to note 1 in your lecture notes
----------------------------------------------- */

background:#123 url("http://www.blogblog.com/dots_dark/bg_minidots.gif") 50% 0;

Delete this line and replace with -

background:#1D1F4C url("http://www.stylegeek.net/clients/alex/infotechbg.gif") no-repeat 10px 50px fixed;

The line of text above will not only change the background color (these are examples of hex values - #123 and #1D1F4C and are the means by which designers, especially css designers, dictate the color scheme of a webpage)

Secondly, the amendment will draw in an entirely new graphic and fix it into the top left hand corner of your webpage - other code you will see in this example stops it from repeating (no-repeat) and will fix it into one position and prevent it leaving the screen when users scroll down (fixed). For the purpose of your blog, you may want to use a different image, more aligned with your blog theme. If so, simply replace the URL of the image for the class blog (http://www.stylegeek.net/clients/alex/infotechbg.gif) with the URL of your image. Ir will be important that your image is no wider than the class image.

Page Structure

The section marked page structure does exactly what it suggests, it dictates the page structure of the webpage - it dictates where all the text will go, and how it will look on the page.

Look for the following in the class source code:
/* Page Structure - Refer to note 2 in your lecture notes
----------------------------------------------- */

2a) Content

Look for the #content section

#content {
background-color: #123;
width:700px;
margin:0 auto;
padding:50px 0;
text-align:left;
}

Find the following code -

background:url("http://www.blogblog.com/dots_dark/bg_3dots.gif") no-repeat 250px 50px;

Delete this line and replace with -

background-color: #123;

This removes the background in the main section of the template (where all the text goes) and merely dictates the page to present it in the color #123 (blue)

2b) Main2

You will notice that on the main template there is a logo at the top of the main body section of the template. This is what you will be adding in next. Basically, you have two options when adding a graphic to a webpage such as the infotech one. You can, if you wish, utilise the standard html route, of which many of you are familiar <img src="graphic.jpg"> which will display the graphic quite well in the main body of your posts.

However, when a graphic is part of a template, that is a logo, or a background graphic, css designers tend to place it by using the css version.

Look for the section marked #main2

#main2 {
background:url("http://www.blogblog.com/dots_dark/bg_minidots2.gif") -100px -100px;
padding:20px 10px 15px;
}

Delete the lines -

background:url("http://www.blogblog.com/dots_dark/bg_minidots2.gif") -100px -100px;
padding:20px 10px 15px;

and replace with -

background: url("http://www.stylegeek.net/clients/alex/infotechdark.gif") no-repeat 10px 0px;
padding:150px 10px 15px;

Note, you may wish to replace the logo with your own image. If so, include the URL of your image, which should include the same dimensions as the class logo, as a replacement for the above code.

2c) #sidebar2

Another graphic needs removing from the template - this is for the sidebar - where all your links go

Look for -

#sidebar2 {
background:url("http://www.blogblog.com/dots_dark/bg_minidots2.gif") 150px -50px;
padding:5px 10px 15px;
width:200px;
width/* */:/**/180px;
width: /**/180px;
}

Find the line

background:url("http://www.blogblog.com/dots_dark/bg_minidots2.gif") 150px -50px;

and replace with

background-color: #123;

again, this will merely remove the graphic background and tell the computer to display the color #123

Title & Description

Look for the following in the class source code:
/* Title & Description - Refer to note 3 in your lecture notes
----------------------------------------------- */

Now we are going to change some font colors.

Under section marked #blog-title look for the code color:#abc; - the hex value is currently #8dd; - Change this value to #abc;

Change the same value under description color:#9c7; change this to color: #fff;

Links

Look for the following in the class source code:
/* Links - Refer to note 4 in your lecture notes
----------------------------------------------- */

You may know that browsers as a rule come with standard colors in which they display links. However, as web designers we find this palette very restrictive, as it impacts on our well thought out color schemes! So, again, we have a handy piece of css that forces your browser to display links in the colors we want! (Note, this is not entirely agreed upon from a design usability standpoint.)

This section of code tells the computer we want a standard link to display in hex color value #da7

a:link {
color:#da7;
}

This value needs to be changed to #fce1a4 in your template.

This section of code tells the computer we want a visited link (that is one you have already seen) to display in hex color #799

a:visited {
color:#799;
}

This is to remain the same!

and this final section of code tells the computer we want a link to change to white when you hover over it!

a:hover {
color:#fff;
}

Again, this remains the same.

Posts

Look for the following in the class source code:
/* Posts - Refer to note 5 in your lecture notes
----------------------------------------------- */

This section controls the way in which your actual blog posts are displayed.

Look for

.date-header {
margin:0 0 .75em;
padding-bottom:.35em;
border-bottom:1px dotted #567;
font:bold 100%/1.4em Verdana,San-serif;
text-transform:lowercase;
color:#7bc;
}

This code tells the computer how your entry dates are to be displayed, the only value you need to change here in this case is the font color, which you may recall is dictated by

color: #7bc;

This needs to be changed to color: #fff; - which is white! you can type white if you wish, as some very restricted colors are available in word form, but it is considered good practice to use the hex color values!

You also need to change the following color values in (again to color: #fff;)

- #post-title
- p.post-footer em

6) More Sidebar Content

Like you have done in similar sections you need to change the font values of the following

- .sidebar-title - change this to #7bc

Refer back over these notes if you need assistance, and can't recall this value!

Thats it, all done!

Don’t forget to save & rebuild!
Thanks to Eliza for the above.

You can also work through this simple tutorial to get more familiarity with HTML.

Internet Security: Dave Brown; Perfiliate.com

2005-10-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

Internet security

Viruses
Key issues:

potential damage to computer
how to protect against

How the following are different from viruses and how we can protect
against them:

Dangers of downloading software from the internet.

Common Spam techniques to trick users into opening malicious code.

Spoofing email address (very easy)
Phishing (attempts daily)
text links to eg. Http://www.paypal.com which are really images
going to another site
Social Engineering (eg. Hello, I'm your ISP I need you to download this bit of software and run it)

What Norton Security/Zone Alarm does

What Norton Security/Zone Alarm doesn't protect against (eg. Difficulty of Trojans, key loggers)

Cookies. Privacy issues

Third party cookies

privacy issues (lies with a third party)
enabling/disabling in browsers, security levels
Third party cookies and affiliate networks etc.

Passwords, automatic screen locks

General Password Construction Guidelines

Poor, weak passwords have the following characteristics:

The password contains less than eight characters
The password is a word found in a dictionary (English or foreign)
The password is a common usage word such as:
- Names of family, pets, friends, co-workers, fantasy characters,
  etc.
- Computer terms and names, commands, sites, companies, hardware,
  software.
- The words "", "sanjose", "sanfran" or any
  derivation.
- Birthdays and other personal information such as addresses and
  phone numbers.
- Word or number patterns like aaabbb, qwerty, zyxwvuts, 123321,
  etc.
- Any of the above spelled backwards.
- Any of the above preceded or followed by a digit (e.g., secret1,
  1secret)

Strong passwords have the following characteristics:

Contain both upper and lower case characters (e.g., a-z, A-Z)
Have digits and punctuation characters as well as letters e.g.,
0-9, !@#$%^&*()_+|~-=\`{}[]:";'<>?,./)
Are at least eight alphanumeric characters long.
Are not a word in any language, slang, dialect, jargon, etc.
Are not based on personal information, names of family, etc.

Passwords should never be written down or stored on-line. Try to create passwords that can be easily remembered. One way to do this is create a password based on a song title, affirmation, or other phrase.

For example, the phrase might be: "This May Be One Way To Remember" and the password could be: "TmB1w2R!" or "Tmb1W>r~" or some other variation.

Here is a list of "dont's":

Don't reveal a password over the phone to ANYONE
Don't reveal a password in an email message
Don't reveal a password to the boss
Don't talk about a password in front of others
Don't hint at the format of a password (e.g., "my family name")
Don't reveal a password on questionnaires or security forms
Don't share a password with family members
Don't reveal a password to co-workers while on vacation

If someone demands a password have them call someone in the Information Security Department.

Do not use the "Remember Password" feature of applications(e.g., Eudora, OutLook, Netscape Messenger).

Again, do not write passwords down and store them anywhere in your office. Do not store passwords in a file on ANY computer system (including Palm Pilots or similar devices) without encryption.

Change passwords at least once every six months (except system-level passwords which must be changed quarterly). The recommended change interval is every four months.

If an account or password is suspected to have been compromised, report the incident to the IT team and change all passwords.

Credits: This is based on the security templates from sans.org

Wikipedia Interview

2005-10-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are contributing to wikipedia, I thought you might like to read this interview with its founder Jimmy Wales. Article found at Collaborative Marketing. Quick excerpt from the article, which gives us some insight into the workings of wikipedia:

LAMB: As I was doing – well, using Wikipedia to do the research for this interview I kept thinking when will Google or Yahoo! put Jimmy Wales out of business. And then I – as I read further, you‘re in business with them in some way.

WALES: Yes, in some way. I think we have – we‘re a non-profit organization that I founded. And we‘ve gotten support from Yahoo! already and Google is very interested in supporting us. We‘re just still talking to them about what to do.

And Yahoo! has donated some servers. And I think what‘s interesting about that is that if you – you know, it‘s almost a joke but it‘s completely true. If you think about well why – why do Yahoo! and Google want to do this and well, their business model depends on the Internet not sucking and we hope the Internet not suck. So it‘s that the Wikipedia for a lot of people hearkens back to what we all thought the Internet was for in the first place which is, you know, when most people first started the Internet they thought oh, this is fantastic, people can communicate from all over the world and build knowledge and share information.

And then we went through the whole dot-com boom and bust and the Internet seemed to be about pop-up ads, and SPAM, and porn and selling dog food over the Internet. And now Wikipedia kind of hearkens back to the original vision of the Internet.

And so it‘s important for the whole business of the entire Internet that there be quality resources that people can turn to and want to turn to. So that‘s – it‘s important to these companies to support us.

More from Google... A News Reader

2005-10-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

As heavily reported in the blogosphere and on slashdot google has launched a News Reader (similar to Bloglines). This was launched during the Web 2.0 conference. A review here highlights its usability.

Since our class began, google has launched a blog search engine and a news reader. This is perhaps a clear signal Web 2.0 is a new paradigm ?

Google's news reader was bound to happen, we shall see its impact on Bloglines and other readers in the near future. For now our course requires the use of Bloglines.

Feedback on your Blog

2005-10-13T02:44:00.000-07:00

As I noted I will be providing you feedback on your blog project to date, beginning end of day wednesday, October 19. Thus you have until that time to make any adjustments to its overall design and content. For your reference here is the original project scope for the blog project. As you will note in the syllabus, this review will comprise a third of your grade for the overall blog project.

Details that I will be paying particularly close attention include:

Overall theme of blog: and how it ties to a specific target audience. Thus it should be clear when viewing the blog what the blog is about and who is its potential 'readership'. For some blogs it will be obvious, for others, it may require a little explanation (in the left hand column of the template).
Content with respect to your entries. I will be looking at the frequency of entries, the 'usefulness' of the entries (especially as they relate to the first point above), and the writing style of the entries (use of good english). I will also be looking for relevant links included within your entries.
Content with respect to your template. I will be looking at the resources you have added to your template and how relevant they are to your target audience and the overall purpose of the blog. These resources should include links to at least five of your classmates' blogs and links to other relevant blogs (relevant to your blog theme). These resources should also include links to your contact information and your wiki work (note, I realize your wiki work may be unrelated to the theme of your blog, but nonetheless it should be linked to your blog). These resources should include sitemeter (This will allow you to determine not only the amount of traffic you are receiving but more importantly where that traffic is coming from so you can identify other resources that link to your blog and reciprocate the link, building community.)
Additional Content with respect to your template. As you progress through the semester I will be looking for you to add further resources to your template. You may consider these now if you wish. Google Adsense (if your blog is informational in nature, and it makes sense to offer advertisements to your target audience, then the google adsense program can allow you to do this); amazon associates (your blog can become an e-commerce site quite easily by enrolling in this program).
Overall Design. I will be assessing the overall look of your blog as it stands now. Are the resources you have added to the template well ordered ? Make sure it is clear in terms of their headers and so forth. There are other opportunities for you to add to the design of your blog as we proceed through the semester, but for now I am focusing on how 'clean' the site looks.
I will also be reviewing your bloglines subscriptions. I will be looking at consistency with your links on your blog as well as other outside resources you are subscribed.

I will focus on the commenting aspect of the blog project after this feedback. Feel free to use the comments section here to ask questions about this feedback, or e-mail me directly.

Blog Mid Term Feedback

2005-10-12T13:24:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in class today, I will be providing feedback on your blog project, starting the end of day next wednesday. I will post on this blog the criteria I will be using to provide the feedback and assign the grade you will receive at this stage. I hope to post this tomorrow.

More on the Mid Term

2005-10-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

Answers to the questions asked here are:
Three click rule: B
Page visit: B
Web 2.0: D

Good luck with the test.

UD goes RSS

2005-10-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

Keep in touch with events and news from our University by subscribing to the UDaily news feed.

Mid Term Answers and Questions

2005-10-11T15:13:00.000-07:00

The answers to the questions posed here are:
Bloglines: D
GoogleNews: C
Early Sites: A
Zoomerang: D
Small Business: E
Referrer URL: B

We will likely also include a few true / false questions in the test.

A few more example questions:

The 'three click rule' of web design refers to:
a. Designing a site that allows users three options on each page to explore
b. Making sure a user is within three clicks of the content he / she is seeking at all times
c. Creating three distinctive navigation schemes
d. Designing a site that has three levels of heirarchy

The following is the correct term when referring to a visitor who visits a page on a web-site:
a. Hit
b. Page view
c. Site visitor
d. View count
e. Hit count

Web 2.0 technologies are considered a more active version of the web. Technologies that comprise this group include all the following except:
a. Blogs
b. Wikis
c. Sites that provide an RSS Feed
d. HTML only sites
e. All the above are examples of Web 2.0 technologies

Answers will be provided about noon time wednesday.

Example Exam Questions

2005-10-10T02:17:00.000-07:00

The following are example questions for the mid-term. I will post the answers tuesday afternoon.

Products such as bloglines, an aggregated news reader, are becoming more popular because of all the following issues except:
a. spam is crippling e-mail
b. being able to read news in your own time, rather than when published by a web-site / blog or e-mail campaign
c. it is easy to view which resources have new updates since you last read the resource
d. all the above are reasons for the popularity of an aggregated news reader

GoogleNews is unique because:
a. It is a paid-for news source
b. It pulls news information exclusively from the blogosphere
c. It only uses computers (computer algorithms) to display news items
d. It offers readers the option to comment on the news in order to create community

Most of the earliest commercial websites were ____ sites.
a. static information-only
b. transaction
c. interactive
d. selling
e. e-mail

Zoomerang is an example of an online survey tool that can be used to perform primary research on the internet. Which of the following is not an advantage of using a tool like Zoomerang:
a. ready access to samples
b. speed and time
c. convenience and cost
d. automatic reporting to survey responders

Which of the following are small businesses NOT doing online?
a. Finding new customers
b. Driving customers to their offline stores
c. Learning how to operate more efficiently
d. Using the Internet to internationalize
e. Increasing procurement costs

A referrer URL is:
a. The web address of the page a browser first accesses on the site
b. The web address of the page that precedes the first page of the site that was accessed
c. The web address of the page a browser accesses after viewing the site
d. A link the browser uses to exit the web site

Mid term Study Guide

2005-10-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

What is being tested:

Slides, book chapters and student wiki entries from 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 14.
Articles that were handed out in the classes.
For readings it is best to try to understand the readings in the context of the ideas discussed in the book.
You do not need to memorize data. Critical to your success in the mid term (and the course in general) will be your understanding of concepts and terminology.

Examples of terminology that may be tested:

Examples of blog entries that may be covered:

Examples of student wiki entries that may be covered:

A few example questions will be posted before monday's class.

Additional Resources for Chapter 14

2005-10-08T02:33:00.000-07:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Pedrera: Pedrera is an interactive communications and technology development agency. We produce online systems for leading brands. (web-site copy)
Zehno: Cross media communications, with a focus on the education industry.
ZeroDefect: Zero Defect Design is a unique interactive media studio. We develop complete creative and technical solutions for all kinds of websites and multimedia projects, from interactive
learning to e-commerce. (web-site copy)
Useit.com: Jakob Neilsen, who hosts this site, is considered a leader in the understanding of web-site design usability. He also authored the book: Design Web Usability.
Web Pages that Suck: Quoted from the site: One of the best ways to learn is by example. Here's a site, produced by a pair of graphic-designer professionals, that shows you what not to do.
Edward Tufte: All around Information Design 'guru'.
Google Maps: An example of the use of AJAX, which lets you click and drag around the map indefinitely without having to wait for page loads.
10 Design Tips: A page I maintain.
ChapterFourteenMoore
ChapterFourteenAlvelo
ChapterFourteenWarner

Chapter 14 Slides: Marketing Site Development

2005-10-08T02:31:00.000-07:00

Mid Term Preparation

2005-10-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

The mid-term, scheduled for wednesday of next week, will comprise fifty multiple choice questions. To prepare for the mid-term you should be comfortable with the chapter materials paying particular attention to the material that was discussed in class and highlighted on the slides. You should also be familiar with content from posts on this class blog and the entries for the wiki project for the chapters we are covering up until the mid-term. You should also review all hand outs from the class and have a good understanding of the blog / bloglines project.

This weekend I will post an entry on this blog than can serve as a 'study guide'. This entry will include (but perhaps not limited to):

Links to the student wiki entries that will be covered for the mid-term.
Links to wikipedia for keyterms that will be important to understand for the mid-term. These terms will be from the text, and you will be tested on content from the text. Nevertheless having the wikipedia entry to explore can provide reinforcement for your learning.

Additional Resources for Chapter 8

2005-10-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Relational Database
Data Warehouse
Collaborative Filtering
RFID
THE CUSTOMER RESPECT GROUP
Competitive Intelligence: Business Schools:
Google
A9.com
Cookie
ChapterEightRudden
ChapterEightRomig
ChapterEightGahr

Office hours canceled for wednesday, October 5

2005-10-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

I am giving a presentation at lunchtime on wednesday so will need to cancel office hours. If you were planning on attending, please e-mail me with your questions.

Creating an entry in Wikipedia

2005-10-04T13:09:00.000-07:00

I thought I would highlight one of your classmates entries in Wikipedia. Having discovered there was no entry for the ASP World Tour John created the ASP World Tour entry. A small, but meaningful, contribution to the knowledge base of Wikipedia no doubt. It will now be important to edit the surfing entry in wikipedia to include a link to this entry so that those who are exploring the surfing entry are made aware of this entry and can click over easily.

Chapter 8 Slides

2005-10-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

Are here. These slides may be updated again before class. If this is the case I will edit this entry to let everyone know. If there are further updated, it will only be small updates so printing these out is fine.

Class Survey

2005-10-03T01:55:00.000-07:00

Using one of the 'tools' described in chapter seven I have created a course survey. Please complete this at your earliest convenience, it will provide me good insight as we continue through the semester. I will make the results available to you.

Setting up this survey on zoomerang was free and very straightforward, it only took about twenty minutes to accomplish.

Additional Resources for Chapter 7

2005-10-02T11:32:00.000-07:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

VALS Survey. I took this survey, and apparently am an 'Innovator; Achiever' ... it took less than five minutes to take the survey.
Active Group: Internet broadcasting (video streaming) for Focus Groups, In-Depth Interviews, and Web Usability Testing.
Greenfield Online: When you participate in Greenfield Online's surveys your input matters. You directly influence the way companies develop products, policies, and services. Sharing your opinions online is easy and always confidential. (Copy from the web-site).
Zoomerang: Zoomerang Basic allows users to easily create and send shorter, less complex surveys and view up to 100 survey responses per survey online for 10 days after the survey is launched free of charge.
- Class Survey
ZoomPanel: ZoomPanel is an online survey panel where consumers, like you, can tell companies what you think about their products or services. You will be rewarded for offering your opinions and can earn valuable merchandise and gift certificates of your choice! (Copy from web-site)
Survey Monkey: Similar to Zoomerang.
Whitestrips: Example of an online test market
WebTrends: Web analytics software. Thousands of web-smart organizations worldwide, including more than half of the Fortune and Global 500, depend on WebTrends to improve their web site conversions and optimize their marketing performance for maximum return on investment. (Web-site copy)
QRCA Qualitative Research Consultants Association: Through QRCA you have access to nearly 1000 Qualitative Research Consultants throughout the world. Our Research Consultants include focus group moderators, facilitators, interviewers, and planners in many types of qualitative research. Their expertise includes focus groups, individual depth interviews (IDIs), ethnography, observational research, usability research, idea generation, and other qualitative approaches in-person and online. (Web site copy)
WETI: Greenfield's Web-enabled Telephone Interviews: Greenfield's Web-enabled Telephone Interviews, or WETI™, uses proprietary software to enable respondents worldwide to view the same visual stimuli during a one-on-one telephone interview. The visual stimuli are controlled within a secure area of the Greenfield Web site. A project can be executed in a fraction of the time, and at a fraction of the cost, of face-to-face-interviews. (Web site copy)
MillwardBrown: a leading and innovative global market research agency, specializing in helping companies maximize their brand equity, brand performance and brand health. And we help them optimize their media, advertising, PR and other communications. (Web site copy)
Google Zeitgeist: Compilation of search behavior of google users for the week.
Epinions.com: Is a premier consumer reviews platform on the Web and a reliable source for valuable consumer insight, unbiased advice, in-depth product evaluations and personalized recommendations.
Amazon.com: Customer reviews.
Pollhost.com: Free polls for your web-site.

Chapter 7 Slides

2005-10-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

First Article Summary is due Wednesday, October 5

2005-09-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

As noted in the project logistics entry your first article summary is due by end of day wednesday of next week. Feel free to e-mail me your ideas for an article if you wish. You could also simply note your idea on your wiki page and e-mail me once this is done if you wish. Your wiki page should allow you to 'brain dump / storm' ideas as you formulate your entry and continue to edit it. Your article summary should be approximately 200 words (+ / - 10%)

Specifics of the summary include:

For each article, you should link to the article, write a brief summary of the article, which also cites the chapter material you are referencing and the relevance to the material of the article selected. This should include page numbers from the book.

Make sure, once you have edited your wiki page you include an update on the UpDate page so I (and your classmates) know to check your work.

Wikipedia: University of Delaware

2005-09-29T14:53:00.000-07:00

One of your classmates e-mailed me about the University of Delaware's entry in Wikipedia, and I think quite rightly pointed out that it is pretty lame. You can compare it to Penn, Drexel, Temple and Maryland and see we have some scope to improve. Feel free to edit the Delaware entry in order to gain the extra credit I am offering for your wikipedia work. If you know others who are better positioned to add content to this entry, you may want to encourage them to do so. As your classmate rightly pointed out, this may well become a resource that is used by high school students to get to really understand the University. This could be a great marketing medium for the school.

Update for the Wiki Project

2005-09-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

I have created a page: UpdatePage that needs to be edited each time you make a change to one of your pages within the wiki. I am not entirely sure the wiki works with bloglines in terms of picking up its RSS feed, so this is my quick workaround in case it does not. Students (and myself) will then need to only check one page to see if there are relevant updates to the pages we are 'managing' and 'contributing' and 'grading'.

I am also asking you to take your chapter intro page and cut it back to a 200 word entry about the team. As of now you each have separate entries about yourselves within the page. The 200 word entry should include links to each wikipage for each team member as well as a link to each team member's blog.

Project Class

2005-09-28T09:40:00.000-07:00

For class today we are going to cover the details of all the project work now that you have had decent exposure to each of the technologies we are using. We will spend some time detailing the following diagram that illustrates the blog project work.

Thanks Eliza

Comments: Things you can do.

2005-09-27T15:02:00.000-07:00

To eliminate comment spam, and to get an e-mail once you have received a comment on your blog, you can go to your blog settings / comment settings, and make the necessary adjustments.

To eliminate comment spam.

To get an e-mail when you receive a comment include your e-mail in the last dialogue box on the same settings page.

Bloglines Subscriptions

2005-09-27T05:35:00.000-07:00

By this time you should be starting to use your bloglines subscriptions to read news and classmates' blogs online. This includes you having subscribed to at least five classmates blogs as well as other outside resources that have an RSS feed. Many of these are listed on this blog. While a few of you have yet to include additional resources (now I can check by viewing your public subscriptions) the following are good examples of being 'compliant' with this aspect of your project work (and using folders to organize the bloglines account):

Add Contact Information to your Blog

2005-09-27T05:28:00.000-07:00

As a blog owner, it is important to allow people to contact you if they have follow up questions they prefer not to leave in the comments section. It would also be helpful for me to provide you feedback if your e-mail address was included in the left hand column of your blog. To do this add the following code to create a hyperlinked e-mail address:

<A HREF="mailto:youre-mailaddressgoeshere">Whatever you want to include here (perhaps your e-mail address again)</A>

An example of this can be seen here, under the heading 'My Contact Information'.

More on how to edit your template is here.

Guest Speakers via Skype

2005-09-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

Presuming I can make the technology work we will have two guest speakers in class tomorrow (Monday, September 26) who will be discussing their business as it relates to launching an online presence, a theme from Chapter 4.

The first speaker (2:45 pm) will be Graham from Clear Admit. Graham will discuss the life of his business to date, its dependancy on its internet marketing strategy and offer some surprising statistics.

The second speaker (3:15 pm) will be Toby from Diva Marketing. She will discuss her decision to use the internet to promote her business, despite her more modest technology skills. She will also discuss her decision to create a blog (to compliment her traditional 'brochureware' site), the successes she can attribute to her web presense as it relates to her business, and her ideas for her future use of the internet.

Toby will use the following slides.

If you get a chance, please take a look at both sites before class and we hope you have some interesting questions. I am really looking forward to seeing how this class works!

We've been Blogged!

2005-09-22T02:57:00.000-07:00

Its always 'fun' to see who is referencing your blog. As I mentioned in class yesterday, its essential to include sitemeter in your blog to identify blogs that are providing links to your blog. As I looked at the sitemeter referrer statistics this morning I discovered this post mentioning this class blog. Steve mentions our blog because he noticed referrer statistics coming from this blog to his as a consequence of this blog entry which includes a link to one of his articles.

Wikipedia Extra Credit

2005-09-21T02:43:00.000-07:00

As noted in the syllabus, there is an opportunity for extra credit once you have successfully edited an entry in wikipedia. I wanted to point you to a classmate's edit in wikipedia: Jessica Simpson and you can see Becky Corlett's work noted in the 'history' section (September 20); her entry having been edited by someone else shortly thereafter.

I would encourage those doing this to then add a link from their blog to this work.

Additional Resources for Chapter 4

2005-09-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Classmates' Blogs

2005-09-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

From time to time I will post a few of your classmates' blogs to discuss in class. Dolphins in Detroit 06 includes a brief, but simple introduction on the left hand nav. and also includes Jason's bloglines subscriptions. Luxury Automobiles includes a list of friend's blogs and a list of additional links (which currently includes the link to the author's wiki project). Travels in Italy also includes links to classmates' blogs.

We will look at each of these tomorrow and also go over how to include content on the left hand nav. of your template. How to edit your template should get you started. The following is the project scope of the blog. As part of 'other relevant resources' noted in bullet 7 of the project scope, you should also consider adding the following over the course of the semester:

Sitemeter: track how many visits you receive and the referer URL. Listed under 'other resources' and an example at the bottom left.
GoogleAdsense: run advertisements served by google that are 'contextual'. Listed under 'other resources'.
Your contact information: if someone wants to contact you ?
Amazon Affiliate Links: create an e-commerce site. Listed under 'other resources' and an example with the class text from Amazon.

Chapter 4 Slides

2005-09-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

KeyTerms, collectively defined

2005-09-19T14:57:00.000-07:00

I have added a page on the class wiki: keyterms. As described:

This page will serve a few purposes:

Allow students to identify keyterms and define those terms. Other student can then add to those definitions as they see fit.
Allow students to learn the process of collaborative work in a safe environment (i.e. this won't count for your project grade but can be added for extra credit)
Serve as material that will be covered in the mid term and final (i.e. if the keyterm comes from material up to the mid term, a question will come up in the mid term about this keyterm, so you have a chance to define the mid term and final).

What should you do?

You can either start a keyterm definition or add to another definition. To start a definition simply list the term, in bold, as a header to a paragraph. The paragraph should then explain the keyterm. To add to a definition, simply edit the work that currently exists. If you start a keyterm definition, you are also responsible for monitoring that definition overtime.

The Future of Media; The Future of the Web ?

2005-09-19T08:12:00.000-07:00

Media: EPIC
Web: The Best of the New Web

eBay's Skype Acquisition

2005-09-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

One of the areas of real growth in terms of internet use is that of internet telephony. This is further highlighted by the recent transaction of eBay's acquisition of Skype. eBay purchased Skype for $2.6 Bn (plus $1.5 bn in incentives if Skype meets future performance targets) despite Skype only reporting $60 m in revenues and no profit to date. Skype does have 54 million users and acquires more than 100,000 new customers a day, but clearly the transaction is about synergy, future growth of the skype customer base, which will result for the most part by the rapid growth of internet telephony. The following two blog articles offer insights into the merits of this transaction.

We can also take a look at eBay acquires Skype and you can subscribe to this search result in your bloglines account by subscribing to http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=eBay+acquires+Skype&btnG=Search+Blogs&num=10&output=atom

Blog Hub Strategy

2005-09-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

While I don't expect your blog to ultimately become a 'hub' for its 'space' this article discusses the merits of turning your blog into a hub. This is something I focused on here and now here. We will take a quick look at this in class tomorrow. Thanks Toby for the 'heads up'.

Project Compliant To Date

2005-09-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

In order to be compliant with the project requirements to date please make sure:

Your blog is listed on this site (left hand column) and includes two postings.
Your public subscriptions are listed on this site (next to your blogs) and you are subscribed to the class blog. If this is not the case make sure to e-mail me your web address for your public subscriptions (to do this follow these simple guidelines)
You have included your introductory entry on the class wiki. (to do this follow these simple guidelines)

E-mail me if there are problems with the above (use the subject header: BUAD477).

Interesting Beta Launch

2005-09-15T05:25:00.000-07:00

Google has launched a blog search engine (About Google Blog Search). This will compete with technorati and feedster. Try all three and see if your posts are appearing ?

Additional Resources for Chapter 3

2005-09-14T02:38:00.000-07:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Chapter 3 Slides

2005-09-13T02:26:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2 Slides

2005-09-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

Additional Resources for Chapter 2

2005-09-11T05:17:00.000-07:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Wiki Teams: Getting Started

2005-09-08T02:23:00.000-07:00

The steps to complete by next wednesday, September 14:

Send me an e-mail to request access to the class Wiki (to gain your ID and PW)
Create your wiki page (the convention ChapterNumberLastname)
Add your introduction to the ChapterPage

The following are your Wiki teams and chapter assignments:

Team A: ChapterFourteen
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterFourteen
Marisa Alvelo
Pedro Moore
Kerri Warner

Team B: ChapterTwelve
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterTwelve
Jason Beinstein
Heather Hart
Eric Mollo

Team C: ChapterEleven
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterEleven
Katherine Alexo
Greg Friedrich
Erin Moore
Jennifer Ruzzi

Team D: ChapterTen
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterTen
Jessica Bader
Rebecca Corlett
Jennifer Houser

Team E: ChapterNine
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterNine
Lauren Gaites
Victoria Paccione
Lauren Sabol

Team F: ChapterEight
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterEight
Amy Gahr
Brian Romig
Jodi Rudden

Team G: ChapterSeven
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterSeven
Ross Cunningham
Dimitrija Georgiev
Kyle Wilt

Team H: ChapterSix
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterSix
Brittany Boyle
Katherine Kosinski
Stefanie Spatola

Team I: ChapterFive
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterFive
Kristin Berglund
Meredith Bratus
Kathy Sypek

Team J: ChapterFour
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterFour
Aimee Fajiculay
John Grace
Jay Krukowski

Team K: ChapterThree
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterThree
Molly Levin
Greg Mannering
Christian Marchan

Team L: ChapterTwo
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterTwo
Laura Marshall
Mary Mauro
Doug Moore

Team M: ChapterOne
http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterOne
Mark Pecorella
Jonathan Shellam
Tom Walsh

Materials to Review
Please review the following project outline. You can also review these 'how to' guidelines. Note there are articles on Wikis at the bottom of the left hand column of this blog for further reference.

Getting Started.
For next wednesday (September 14) you need to have completed your intruductory assignment:

An introduction of you and your group members, links to each of your blogs, and each of your individual chapter pages (each team member will create your own chapter space to host the article summaries you create). These introductions should be under the heading 'Team Introduction', on your ChapterPage (i.e. if you are a part of the ChapterOne team your wiki page for the team is http://buad47705fall.jot.com/ChapterOne). The total word count for the introduction of all team members should be 200 words, + / - 10 %.

Get your Wiki Account Information
To begin this you first need to send me an e-mail, so I can invite you to the project (and provide your ID and PW). Please send me an e-mail to alex@udel.edu with the subject header "BUAD477 WIKI INVITE".

Additional Resources for Chapter 1

2005-09-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

For each chapter I will post additional resources. Students who are covering the particular chapter are free to use these links, or other links, for their wiki project.

Chapter 1 Slides

2005-09-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

Wiki (Jotspot): Simple How To Guide

2005-09-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

Class on wednesday will discuss the Wiki project in more detail. Once this is discussed the following tips will enable you to begin this project. The scope of the project is articulated here.

As you begin your wiki team project you will need to know how to create additional wikipages; how to link a word to a different page and how to link to outside resources on the web. All three tasks are straightforward, but this is designed to get you started.

Naming Convention
For the project you will have been assigned a chapter along with 2 - 3 other classmates. Each chapter is named with the following convention; for chapter one the wiki page is ChapterOne (note the capital letter on the second word and no word spacing, this is the convention necessary for the design of the wiki space.) For chapter two, the wiki name is ChapterTwo etc. Each of you needs to create an additional page, that hosts the article summaries you begin and manage. You should use the following convention, assuming you are part of the chapter three team and your last name is Brown; ChapterThreeBrown.

Creating your Wiki Page
Your first step, before creating your first article summary, will be to create your wiki page. To accomplish this simply:

Go to your assigned chapter page
Click on the 'create page' button on the horizontal nav. above the header of the page
Type on the wiki name for the page, in my demo it would be 'ChapterThreeBrown', press 'go'. This page is now created, and displayed, it is that easy!

Linking to your Wiki page
Linking to your wiki page is very straightforward, both within the wiki itself, and as a URL on the internet at large (you may consider linking to it from your blog for instance).

To link to the page within the wiki:

As you create text simply type out the WikiWord for your page. So in the above example, each time I type ChapterThreeBrown I would be creating a hyperlink to the page 'ChapterThreeBrown', assuming this page has already been created. Very simple.

To link to the page from the internet at large:

Simply use the URL http://buad47705fall.jot.com/WikiHome/ChapterThree/ChapterThreeBrown Note: if I had created the page when I was at the WikiHome page, rather than the ChapterThree page, the URL would not include the ChapterThree element.

Linking to Outside Resources
Part of your article summary assignment is to link to outside resources discovered via google etc. To do this as you type out your text you will need to highlight words within the text which will then link to the resource. From the example on: http://buad47705fall.jot.com/WikiHome/ChapterThree/ChapterThreeBrown

First step is to highlight the appropriate text, I highlighted 'class blog'.
Click the 'insert web link' option (looks like a chain)
In the dialog box add the appropriate URL (http://infotechmarketing.blogspot.com)
Also add a Title, this appears as someone places their 'mouse' over the link before clicking, in this case I added 'My Favourite Class'; the select 'OK' You are finished.