Advertise with Google AdWords

Google AdWords

With a bazillion sites on the interwebs these days, how do you get noticed? You advertise, duh! Google has one thing going for it (well, maybe more than one) and that is the fact that the majority of people use Google as their search engine. And when you have a bazillion web users using your search engine, you have a bazillion users searching for something out there on the interwebs (I'm assuming a one to one correlation here). This is why using Google's AdWords can be great way to increase market awareness of your particular site, product, and/or service.

What seems to be a fairly straightforward concept is actually a lot more complicated once you open up the hood and take a look underneath. This is coming from someone who has never taken any marketing or advertising courses, nor have I ever tried to produce a campaign of any sort. This isn't to say that one shouldn't let the experience overwhelm you. I'm sure the algorithms they use could land an astronaut on the sun blindfolded, so I'll take their word for it and trust that they work.

Essentially, you create advertising campaigns (and there are many different types that I will not go into details here). Within each campaign, you can set the targeted key words and a budget. This budget guarantees that you will not go over the predetermined allocated amount that you have budgeted. You can also control your costs by your bids and ad quality. There is no minimum spending requirement and you pay a small one time activation fee. You will always have the option to have total control over every minute detail, but Google does offer recommendations based on their metrics and analytics that they have measured on the keywords you've specified.

Each time your ad is eligible to appear, an auction takes place among your ads and all the other eligible ads. Your bid is one of the factors that determines whether your ad shows, and in what position. Based upon those criteria and your Quality Score, Google determines when and where to place your ads when the relevant keywords are searched. Your Quality Score is a measure of how relevant your ad, keyword, or webpage is.


Below is my attempt at a Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) flowchart representation of the AdWords' process. This is only scratching the surface of the business process but it gives a broad overview of what a newcomer can expect once they open the front door and step inside AdWords' world.



Click on the image for a closer view.

Gregorious V 2.0

Under Construction

Enterprise 2.0

Enterprise 2.0

Have you noticed how 2 of the arguably largest (in terms of user base and activity) social networks have had an increasing business presence? Think of 'Fan of...' pages on Facebook and companies setting up business Twitter accounts. What was once a consumer focused technology has been adopted by companies as another front to run their business.

Enterprise 2.0 is the idea of creating and using an open ecosystem of tools in a business setting that encourages a culture of learning and sharing ideas. It's about access to real time data through inter-connected applications, services and devices. Though there are many different facets, I'm mainly going to concentrate on those aspects that we have covered in our course, mainly social software. With the way that the interwebs have weaved itself into our daily lives, it's becoming increasingly important to be cognizant of the current environment. Think about how Google and Microsoft have now included Twitter tweets and trending topics in real time search results.

The gambit of Enterprise 2.0 can run from internal corporate settings out to every 'connected' person on earth. It is about providing a 2 way channel of communication and stepping away from the structured settings of the past. Is it to allow collaboration to increase innovation, productivity, and flexibility. Two heads are better than one, many heads are better than two! Imagine collaborating on a project through email.

Email is a very linear structured format and is essentially displayed as such. One respondent may answer one question but miss the next and responses to questions get mixed up and lost within the sea of emails. It is like starting at the top of the ladder with a question and then stepping down each rung to find the corresponding answer. Now take a program like google wave and consider what it does to email. It provides real time updates to conversations (or waves as they like to call it). You no longer have a ladder structure of conversations. Each wave can be responded to separately and flows more naturally like a real conversation. Links, polls, and embedded web content all make Google Wave a much more usable collaboration tool as opposed to email. This extension also applies to blogs and wikis which allow a collaborative effort in an unstructured environment. Using a multiauthor system, people can easily contribute all types of content-text, video, pictures. Participants can continue the conversation, challenge each other and push ideas forward in a collaborative network.

Let's return to the topic of Facebook and Twitter. The use of social networks and social media is having a major impact on how companies learn and share information in a business setting. It used to be where the only time a customer visited a site is if they needed something. A very one way street type of travel. Then came RSS feeds, Facebook, and Twitter. A customer subscribing to a companies RSS feed can be kept up to date about current happenings. A nice idea, but feeds only goes to subscribers. How do companies reach a broader audience? Enter social networks. Twitter allows companies to reach out to consumers, but in a different fashion. A personal RSS feed is more private compared to a Twitter account who has followers. These followers are public. And friends of followers can see who all they follow. This allows a wider audience potential and allows for a more public yet personal interaction. I complain about Comcast on Twitter and what happens? I get a tweet from @ComcastMelissa asking if she can do something to help.

What about Facebook? Create a Fan page on Facebook. Get people to become 'Fans' of your company page. Friends of friends are able to see this new friendship and can become fans/friends as well. Updates show up on fans/friends news feed. The more a company updates its page, the more a fan/friend is reminded of that company. And that's what they want, to be in the minds of consumers and use the power of social networks to spread the brand recognition. Facebook is not as powerful a tool as Twitter is in terms of customer engagement, but these social networks are all linked. LinkedIn is another social network with a focus on business and networking. They provide links that enable you to follow them on each major network. And this is what the impetus is all about, utilizing the ubiquitous environment of the interwebs social realms.

Though Enterprise 2.0 is composed of much more than just social software, social software does encompass much of what Enterprise 2.0 is about. We are just now entering in a new era where rich Internet applications, providing software as a service, and using the web as a general platform, are coming to the forefront of the business space. Only time will tell how the business landscape will adapt and change in this rapid web centric environment.

Wordia

Wordia

Wordia is a compelling new way to learn about words. Imagine those calendars that teaches you a new word everyday, now plaster that onto a website with user generated videos and you have Wordia. They have an existing Wordia corpus so only those words are allowed at the moment. They are working on a feature that would allow the submission of new words. Be it as it may, our group, consisting of Chris Thorn and Keith Manthey shot a total of 3 videos.

1. Findability.

Though it's not in the Wordia corpus, it is in actuality a real word and an imperative aspect of website design.



2. Massage

This video was submitted to Wordia and we were the first group to submit a video for this word. As a prize, we get a red ribbon place upon our video for all the world to see. I haven't figured out how to embed the video straight from Wordia so I've place the YouTube video instead.




3. Wordia

And our final attempt was the word Wordia itself. We found it ironic that Wordia was not in Wordia's corpus. We are waiting anxiously for the day where we can submit a request to have Wordia added to the corpus and our video added to the site. Until that day comes, you may see my ugly mug in the YouTube video below. Enjoy it while you can because it will be coming down very shortly.

Pivot Tables

PIvot Table

You may be asking yourself why I have a picture of turn table on my blog. Well, 'turn' is analogous to 'pivot' and hence, 'Pivot Table'. Plus, searching for a pretty 'pivot table' was just not happening.

Only recently, I'd say within the past couple of years, have I noticed that when i want to export a spreadsheet, I had 2 options. The first was to export as a table, and the second was to export as a pivot table. Now, I had never heard of a pivot table nor knew what it did. And since no one had ever asked me to utilize it for anything, I had thought that maybe it was a legacy table, left over from the relics of non-GUI based software interfaces.

Then at my last job interview, the interviewer asks me if I knew how to use a pivot table! Wow, someone is asking me about this ancient technology left over from the days of the Great Pyramids! I was excited. I had to answer honestly and declined that I knew anything about pivot tables, but I said I was willing to learn. All interviewers love hearing about wanting to overcome your shortcomings. As I started working, I only utilized the standard tables. I was never asked again about the pivot table or was ever taught how to use it. But they would send out weekly statistics to the team. The information was overwhelming. We always thought to ourselves, 'how do they have the time to run all these reports and number?'

So one day, I'm sitting in our Database Management course and the pivot tables comes up again. Huh, this is interesting, we're gonna talk about pivot tables. Maybe we're taking a stroll down memory lane like in our Software Development course when we talked about the Turing Machine. Boy was I wrong, the pivot table isn't old and it is definitely not outdate. Not only was I wrong about how old it was, I was also wrong about the power behind it. I suddenly had an epiphany about my team leads as work. They were using pivot tables to run all those statics! And it didn't take them all day, using a pivot table allowed them to do it in minutes! I was flabbergasted, for lack of a better word.

Pivot tables are an extension of the standard spreadsheet that is capable of displaying the summarization of the data sets contained within the spreadsheet. The name comes from the ability to pivot the different data sets on the summary table and it's power seems to be limitless. Well, I may be overselling at this point. I've only used it for a couple of days now but the hidden potential isn't lost upon me. You can learn more from Oreilly.

Net Neutrality: What does it mean for you?

Net Neutrality

Do you love the way your smartphone comes bundled with a data plan (most of the time it's mandatory) and text message plan? Do you love the way you can choose your different movie and sports bundles through your cable provider? Great! Well, corporate America has once again graced us with their familiar business model of bundling packages. This sounds like a good idea to begin with. You only pay for the amount of internet you use. Why is this bad? This is where it gets a little more complicated and for the end user Joe Schmoe, a lot more scarier. The telecommunications companies want to have a tiered internet. The more you pay, the faster your connection. This doesn't apply only to the end users, it also applies to the corporations and companies that want to get that information to us. The more the companies pay, the faster their information is sent to us. Its a two way street, with the bandwidth connection going as fast as the slowest connection speed. So you could have blazing T3 lines, but since you requested information from a small Mom & Pop shop running dial-up speed, you'll be sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting.

Not only are the connection speeds tiered, there is preferential treatment for their own content. The telco's may slow down or completely block content or services provided by their competitors. Now that we've ended racial segregation, lets start with internet segregation. I digress. Let's say Comcast and Google have entered an agreement that bars either from using anybody else's service. How would it feel to not be able to use Google search just because you're not on a Comcast connection?

Where do the bundles come in? Let's say you want a sports bundle, you could purchase and pay an extra fee on top of your basic cable costs. What about different search engines? There could be a bundle for that. And family orientated programming? I'm sure they'd create a bundle for that. And how fast do you want these bundles to be delivered? I'm sure they'd be happy to take more of your money to send content to you a smidge quicker. What's at stake here is the freedom to access any and all content, regardless of content provider or service provider, all at the same speed.

The internet was an even playing field (I'm speaking in past tense as if it has already happened, somehow, corporate America always wins) to all players. Small startups could easily start a site and promote their company and products. The cost of entry was relatively low. WIth tiered pricing, businesses would have to compete at the top tier to be competitive. To play at those levels, you have to be a big dog. Already established corporations and companies have no problem, it's the little guys that get stepped on. The rich get richer while the poor get poorer. Nothing would exacerbate this more than the proposed tiered internet. The big dogs continue to control the market while at the same time, eliminating any smaller competition from gaining ground.

If this post seems biased, it's probably because you work for one of the telco companies. Show your support for Net Neutrality and spread the word by visiting Save The Internet.

iPhone Web Development Resources For The Noob

iPhone

As a new developer, it can be a daunting task to create something from nothing. What is available in terms of documentation, resources, and examples? Probably the most important question; where does one start? There a many resources that are available online, but one must remember that the landscape changes frequently and not all online resources update to reflect the changes. Here is a list of resources to get one started...

This first one is provides a general overview of elements to be mindful of when developing web content. 12 Things to get you started

The WebKit framework is what Apple's iPhone Safari web browser is based upon. As such. it's probably a good idea to know how it works. Apologies for being Mr. Obvious. Anyways, a Webkit tutorial should get you on your way.

Sometimes it helps to belong to a community of developers. They can provide much needed guidance and assistance when one comes to a mental block in trying to figure out how to get something to work correctly. iPhoneWebDev has a iPhoneWebDev Google Groups page with an active user base where one can ask questions and toss ideas around.

If you've been around web development, you may have heard of Web Monkey. This is an excellent site for reference and provides many tutorials. iUI is an excellent way to provide a very Apple-like user interface to web applications and one of Web Monkey's iUI tutorials takes you through the process.

Cascading Style Sheets were your friend in web development and they will continue to be your friend in mobile web development. Tutorial Hero is here to save the day with their CSS tutorial.

And because the iPhone has 2 modes, portrait and landscape, one must adapt our pages accordingly. What better place to go and get information than straight from the horses mouth, er, or Apple's Viewportpage.

A good link to have handy is Apple's iPhone Dev Center where one can get the latest updates, builds, and development information.

Good luck! You'll need it.