Much has been said, good and bad, about GoDaddy.com. This time, however, they have come through beautifully for David Airey.

If you have read about his problems as a result of:

• getting hacked through GMAIL
• getting his domain transfered due to a weak challenge procedure
• getting extorted by the cracker who stole his domain

Then you will all be glad to know that davidairey.com is back in business. The DNS is still resolving, so some might not be able to see the page. A few lessons we can all learn here:

• GMAIL is a free service. Don’t rely on it for your business. It’s great for personal use.
• Be careful what sites you visit, don’t keep cookies in your PC if it’s not necessary.
• Keep your passwords strong, don’t share them. Especially don’t talk about them over MSN, email or any other public chat or forums.
• Big companies CAN be helpful AND effective if the issue is big enough (see how David used a powerful headline and generated a tremendous buzz)
• There are lots of nice people online too.

When you choose to operate online, remember that there is a society that is made up of real people. Just like if you opened a shop, you have neighbours, you have them online as well. Hopefully, we are all keeping good, positive accounts with our online neighbours.

Technorati Tags: david airey, cracker, hacker, gmail hack, godaddy

In any endeavor, there is always a risk factor. Online, there have been a lot of press about credit card theft, and identity thefts. However, these have been mainly focused on the consumer. Businesses have always been more concerned about scams.

David Airey’s situation is quite unique.

Most business related cases have been about “cyber squatting” - http://www.lectlaw.com/files/inp23.htm where the owner of the domain name is not the owner of the brand. Here is an interesting aside for those interested to know which famous brands do not have their own domain names: Professional Sports

David’s is the first case I know where a blogger has been targeted for a commercial blackmail: Google Mail Hacked. David has documented it quite clearly and it is apparent that the hacker had executed a very well planned attack.

So, if you are going to go for Internet Marketing, you do need to be aware that online security is not just for the big boys. If you are making slightly more than pocket change (PR-0 guys like me have no worries, then…), then, you could be a potential target. Many small businesses scrimp on things like security - virus protection, spam protection, back up and so on. It’s fine if nothing happens. But just like fire insurance, you sure as hell wish you had them when disaster strikes.

For those not technically savvy, it is best to have professional help in setting up your online presence. Sure, it can be easily done. But is it secure? Heck, would you even know if it weren’t?

I would like to wish all readers and visitors to this blog a very Merry Christmas and a FABULOUS New Year ahead!

What is the world coming to? Someone just stole David Airey’s url. Can you imagine that? Now, if you go to www.davidairey.com, you see a “parking” page rather than his highly popular blog!

David has moved his stuff over to a new url: http://www.davidairey.co.uk

Somehow, the hacker managed to contact David’s domain reseller and got the url switched. He got into David’s Gmail too! Well, this sort of highlights one of the dangers of using free webmail services to run important things like your business dealings.

It would be interesting to see how Google will deal with this or will they simply blame it on the end user’s “weak” password? It would also be good to follow this and see how the authorities are going to deal with this domain theft.

David is known to many of us (online) and we share his ire at this. What a way to celebrate Christmas.

If you have been doing any reading at all about marketing, you must have come across this term in marketing articles and even books - long tail marketing.

After Chris Andersen’s The Long Tail was published in 2004, many people believed that this was a “gold mine” that had been left untapped. Well, I believe Alex Iskold of ReadWriteWeb has hit it dead center when he pointed out the difference between being IN the long tail and LEVERAGING OFF the long tail.

Actually, if you thought about it, this is no different from any other “get rich” or “make money” ideas. The ideas themselves are good. But putting them into practice is the challenge. And usually, there is a linchpin which many miss. Either they over-look it or the ones sharing the secret failed to highlight it. In this case, this long-tail golden goose can be missed or caught on the back of a preposition.

I would suggest that most of us, like it or not, live in the long-tail. We are the 80 in the 80-20 rule. But what is crumbs for the elite could work out to be a nice little nest-egg for us. After all, if you are looking to bolster your main income with a little long-tail stuff, then, a couple of hundreds a month is not too bad. But if you were looking for your fortune, then maybe you have to start looking for the big head and aim for the heart.

Glenda made a very interesting comment yesterday, she was asking “to see a strategy on how we can effectively use and integrate these tools without them becoming great time and focus eaters”.

Every one has their own way of coping. Well, social networking is no different. Interesting enough, there are people who do not network at all. So, contrary to popular belief, social networking is not a universal truth, hermits aside. But I would like to share a tip on how you can use social networking and keep your sanity:

Choose one.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? More is not necessarily better. If you are a member of multiple social networks, what usually happens is, you are a “fringe member” on most of them. Your name is on the list, but I doubt if you are on their minds.

Participate in several different networks. Find one that meets your needs. This means, are you comfortable there, can you promote your business there, or whatever it was that you wanted to accomplish. Narrow it down. If you are happy and comfortable with more than one, fine. But remember that participation is key. And participation can be a time sink you might come to regret.

I would love to hear how all of you are using social networking and what your tips are to make it effective and manageable. Maybe this could become a meme of sorts - but I would love to hear from Glenda, Angela, and Laura.

Technorati Tags: blog, social network, tips

One of the biggest challenges in publicity marekting, is simply getting the news to travel.

But I just read Glenda’s post on “9 Ways to Use Social Media to Campaign for Votes” which really hit it right on the head when it comes to getting the word out. Her nine tips are practical and really easy to do. But most importantly, I feel that they are also effective.

Leveraging off social networks is probably one of the smartest way to promote yourself or your business. There is only one thing more powerful than the 9 o’clock news - Susie’s gossip. If you doubt this, then consider that there are times when you know nothing about the big news about the new community center getting built in your neighbourhood; yet, Susie seeing your neighbour buying a diamond studded collar for his dog is known by one and all.

Social networks have been a powerful force throughout civilization. Now, with the Internet, it has become even more formidable. Question is, do you know how to harness its power?

Technorati Tags: social networking, gossip, news, marketing, publicity

Remember this? Well, I have looked at a few of the sites and there are some really nice posts out there!

These are just 3 of the posts that touched me. The others are nice too, but these seem to speak to me:

http://didisignonforthis.blogspot.com/2007/12/day-of-tree.html
http://thezenofmotherhood.blogspot.com/2007/12/generous-december-and-christmas-miracle.html
http://setxbayou.blogspot.com/2007/12/ladder-guy-view-from-edge-of-christmas.html

Which one do you like? Head on over to MomGadget.com to see the contest.

Technorati Tags: blogs, bloggin, christmas, contest

OK, better minds than mine have grappled with the whole Google slap issue. It is fascinating to see how a company as savvy as Google can imagine that they can get away with clearly monopolistic actions disguised as “for the good of the users”.

Kenneth over at investorblogger.com and Denise in her internetmarektingreview.org post have both taken a shot at this. Both of them make good points. Kenneth’s article in particular deserves a careful read as he seems to have hit it on the head with some of his observations.

For those who do not understand what this is all about, read Denise’s post first as it gives a broad stroke treatment of this issue.

Technorati Tags: google, pagerank, blogging

Most people would love to find a method of marketing that is effective, fun and free. Well, blog marketing certainly fits the bill.

Unfortunately, not many people understand that “effectiveness” is not the same as having a lot of pages in the blog, nor is it getting listed in as many directories as possible. Actually, effectiveness of a blog marketing strategy really depends on the objectives. Any marketer will know that a marketing strategy is nothing more than a powerful sum of its parts. Hence, a blog marketing strategy cannot stand alone, that is a given. So, we will not talk about that. For a blog marketing to be deemed effective, there are usually three measurements: traffic, response, and action.

Denise has an interesting post on how to build blog traffic. Any new blog will face the challenge of generating traffic. The key is not the volume of traffic, but the relevance of it.

Response is one of the best indicators of whether your traffic is targetted or not. Interested parties will respond to your blog posts (unless they are so poorly written…) and they will respond through comments, feedback forms and even emails.

Arguably, action is the holy grail. A blog that has plenty of traffic and an active, responsive readership, but cannot prompt readers into action to become buyers, subscribers or whatever it is you are marketing, can hardly be deemed to be effective.

I am sure there are many other marketing metrics that can be used. But blow aside all the fluff and illusions of success, the above are, I believe, the 1-2-3 of a successful blog marketing program.

There is a difference, you know, between speaking and communicating. But many people, while they are aware of this, I mean, any 101-class you attend will tell you that; yet it is difficult sometimes in practice.

Context and point-of-view are very important when communicating. My thirteen year old daughter gave us an object lesson in that yesterday. When Mommy “corrected” her “… you should use, ‘when I was younger’ and not ‘when I was small’…” she immediately came back with a re-joiner -

“I am STILL young today, so, I was ’smaller’ then.”

Context and Point-of-View. Now, who would have thought…

Dana commented that Google seemed to be making their own ranking irrelevant as they force more and more people to ignore it. Well, that’s an interesting thought.

You see, when Google makes your blog have a zero page rank, what they are saying is, your content is totally irrelevant to any search that a person might make. Hence, no value. So, my question would be, does it mean that advertisers whose ads appear in a PR-0 website or blog gets it for FREE? Hey, how can you charge me for advertising on a page that you claim to be worth ZERO?

Now, it appears as if Google is trying to work for the best of their users. That is fine. But how did blogs and sites get zeroed? Seems like there is actually a human who makes that final call. Google has always been “impartial” and operating based off sophisticated algorithms… now you need a human to read a blog that contains so much good information that it “used to have” a page rank of X and make it zero? Nice policy. Seems like dmoz all over again. Maybe someone, somewhere, will find one of these humans, pay them a few bucks to “zero” one of their competitor’s web site. After all, it’s just business; right?

So, a site that has paid content has a page rank of zero. If that is the case, then why are sites like GameSpy, Amazon and many other purely commercial sites ranked so high? Their content are all commercial. How much hypocrisy is there in this world? We have “paid” content here and there and get zeroed. They have loads of paid content and get a high page rank. We small time bloggers making a few measly dollars to cover our hosting fees get zeroed. These big boys who are PAID millions get high page rank. Why? I guess because they also SPEND big bucks with Google?

Well, life is not fair. We all learned that. But once in a while, we get our hopes up that there are a few nice things going on in this world. Sadly, money talks, and our little crumbs are swept away to make room for the steaks.

Technorati Tags: google, page rank, zero, hypocrites