This has been a truly awful week for us all, and the beginning of a longer awful period in our lives. We have all been consumed by the horrendous events in the Northeast United States. Our hearts go out to all who suffered direct losses of family, friends, and loved ones on Tuesday. We have all lost something.
As this is a newsletter devoted to business and technology, which certainly includes the Internet, I thought my readers might have an interest in some statistics I have received about recent activity on the Internet. I present that information under
"Tech News of Interest", below.
************************************ Useful Tools:
PopUp Killer
One of the most annoying new developments on the Internet is the "pop up" window advertising some product that you have no interest in. Many sites that otherwise show good judgment are beginning to allow these monsters.
These are additional windows that open up when you go to a new web page. Some of them are "PopOvers", and some are "PopUnders", referring to whether they show up on top of the page you are interested in, or behind it. In either case, they are incredibly annoying. They take up your load time, they require you to take action to get them out of your way, and they frequently cause something in your system to "hang", meaning you have to take more drastic action to get rid of them. I have had some that keep popping up more and more windows every time you try to get rid of one. In these cases, you just have to close your browser and start over again.
************************************ Tech
News of Interest:
I recently received a report on the top 300 terms searched for in the last 24 hours, and another report on the top 200 terms searched for in the last 60 days. The difference in what searchers are interested in is dramatic.
The reports are based on summaries of queries from the largest Metacrawlers and represent only a small portion of the total traffic on the Internet, but it is reasonable to assume that the pattern is representative of the whole. The traffic compiled includes 5,581,719 queries for 24 hours and 314,258,732 for the 60 days. The most recent 24 hours is only slightly above the average queries per day for the 60-day period, 5,237,645, representing just a 6.6% increase.
Two subjects of searches stood out significantly above all others. these were searches for "Osama bin Laden", and for "Nostradamus" or "prophecies" or something related to that. Surprisingly, to me, at least, was the fact that there were twice as many searches for Nostradamus as there were for bin Laden. There is a hoax currently traveling the Internet saying that Nostradamus predicted the events of September 11, 2001. Read more about it at
http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBUrbanMyths.shtml#nostradamus.
There was a lot more interest in Afghanistan, the Taliban, terror, and maps than is usually seen. Interest in maps was just over double what appears to be normal. There was a lot of interest in news sites, including the networks and newspapers.
For those of you who are interested, the source of my information about search terms is from
http://www.wordtracker.com/.
************************************ News from the shop:
Most of my time at present is devoted to helping businesses get more exposure on the Internet for their business. This is an effort that focuses on the development of a web site, but goes well beyond that into understanding how you might want to modify your business to take more advantage of the Internet.
Many businesses are local in nature, but could have a broader appeal for some aspect of the business. Frequently, the cost of reaching and serving a larger market inhibits management from making the attempt. Availability of the Internet changes the equation, and may be worth some consideration. Internet marketing can be very useful to businesses of a local nature, but the potential is so much wider if you can serve a wider market in a practical way.
Examine your services and products to see if any of them might be suitable for a broader marketplace than you are currently reaching. If you sell products, think about whether a segment of what you sell might be suitable for shipping. You don't have to be able to ship everything you have, just enough to return a profit on your cost.
If you sell advice or knowledge, think about alternative means of delivery. This could mean packaging what you know in the form of papers or Power Point presentations. It could also mean some kind of seminars or discussions over the phone. I know many people who are conducting paid conference calls with one or more persons to assist clients they may never see.
The Internet provides an opportunity for innovation and improvement, but that means you have to try something new!
Call or write us now to arrange for a free initial consultation
(by phone or e-mail) to identify the ways that we can help you become a more modern, efficient and competitive business.
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