If you haven’t heard, Google has a new feature to prevent people from sending late-night drunken emails. Good to know the Labs works hard on things whose value is mere publicity hype.
Called Mail Goggles, though it’s actually meant to IMPEDE the drunk’s vision of the world, the feature allegedly ensures a person is of sound enough mind to send an email. It proffers a series of math problems, to be completed correctly within a short set amount of time, before it allows the message to go... Read Full Story
The couple that spams together gets successfully sued together.
This week a federal court ordered spam marketing husband-and-wife team Henry Perez and Suzanne Bartok to pay a small Internet service provider (ISP) more than $236 for sending out some 23 million emails advertising loan refinancing services. The messages were sent to the servers at CIS Internet Services in 2003–using the ironically-titled program called Bulk Mailing 4 Dummies.
Happily, this is just the latest news about... Read Full Story
Universal search is here. Regular Internet users are enjoying it without even noticing that sometimes, along with the normal text results, they see links to news stories regarding their query; related images and videos; and even blog posts and books about what they were searching for. This is what universal search is about. It brings results in all different shapes and forms, thus making the life of a searcher easier.
Would that simplify the life of an SEO expert? Of course, not—everyone... Read Full Story
As I sit here, the DOW dropped another 450 points even after the government approved the 87-billion-dollar bailout plan. Even before our market opened up, Japan’s index was down 4.5% and Russia’s 15%. England has an 11-billion-dollar bailout plan for its banks, and France just admitted to an official recession.
We are witnessing economic crises of massive proportions. I don’t claim to be a financial guru that understands the market complexities. Hell, I don’t even remember the 1987 housing... Read Full Story
When I added a burgeoning rock band to my MySpace friends list recently, I got a pleasant surprise: A personal “thank you” that was a bit more than the usual “thanks for the add” that litters MySpaces. Though I already liked the group, this thoughtful attention to detail really made me believe they appreciated their growing fan base.
This wasn’t an anomaly on MySpace, however. These days, lots of bands stay online all day, every day, in order to stay engaged with listeners. At least with... Read Full Story
Last week the Moscone Center West in San Francisco was full of marketers and business owners attending Online Market World 2008. Unlike major conferences such as Adtech and SES, Online Market World is smaller and only its second year. Still, there were a number of quality sessions as well as the whole gamut of exhibitors–from Verisign to Google, UPS to the San Francisco chapter of the Digital Marketing Association. mobileStorm also attended; we had the honor to meet many business owners... Read Full Story
There’s been a lot of talk in recent months about so-called “cloud computing,” in which all software and utilities are stored and accessed on the Internet rather than on a user’s hardware. Think of Salesforce.com, which sells software as a service (SaaS). mobileStorm is SaaS-y too!
Yahoo, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard have a joint project to create a network that lets researchers test their cloud computing experiments–the goal being that open collaboration among industry, academic, and... Read Full Story
Interview marketing is more than a self-branding tool used by the likes of Barbara Walters. It is a powerful strategy that gives you free quality content and free quality links. If done right it, might place your site into top rankings without much effort. Interview marketing is clear-cut: You interview people, place these interviews on your site, and get link-backs from the interviewed individuals’ sites.
However, this strategy isn’t for everyone. It is only possible if interviews would... Read Full Story
Tech watchers were bummed last week when Research In Motion announced that for the current quarter, its margins will narrow and earnings will be lower than analysts had expected. The concern is that RIM, to keep up with the Joneses–er, Jobses–will have to spend more on its BlackBerry to ensure the device stays as technologically hip as any iPhone.
But I think the BlackBerry is a history-making position: Nailbiting, yes, but exciting too. True, as I’ve written before, Android is just one... Read Full Story
Email marketers big and small all face similar struggles when it comes to email delivery. Spam has meant ISPs are increasing their tightening of requirements and filtering of perceived unwanted messages. On the other hand, it’s common knowledge that email is one of the most effective mediums to get out marketing messages to your audience. Read Full Story
