SoKy Local Business or "SoKybiz"

Online retailers await 'Cyber Monday'

Friday November 25, 5:33 PM EST
By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. online holiday sales are expected to hit nearly $20 billion this year and should take off on Monday, when consumers return to work and their fast Internet connections after the long Thanksgiving weekend.

"Cyber Monday," the term coined for the Monday after Thanksgiving, comes on the heels of the busy "Black Friday" shopping day when many brick-and-mortar retailers begin turning a profit.

http://finance.myway.com/ht/nw/bus/20051125/hlm_bus-mcc573126.html

Some of may have noticed that I had added a "Links2Blogs" tower in the right nav pane. I did it to promote the site and thought it would be a helpful addition. It was working I think but this thanksgiving morning as I made my rounds checking all of my blogs and websites, my beloved www.SoKy.Biz site caused a popup block warning. I disable the block and a bunch of intrusive pop ups started happening. I mean really bad one that seemed to be endless. I removed the Links2Blogs link from my nav and the pop ups stopped.

So... buhbye Links2Blogs. Your methods are not those I wish to be associated with. I will advise all my clients and fellow bloggers to avoid you like the plague.

Moody's may cut Ford ratings deeper Tuesday November 22, 5:52 PM EST By Dena Aubin

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday it may cut its ratings on Ford Motor Co. (F) deeper into junk territory, citing sharply lower demand for the company's trucks and sport utility vehicles.

Moody's also said it may cut its ratings on Ford's finance arm, Ford Motor Credit, to junk status from investment grade. A downgrade to junk territory would eject Ford Credit from the widely followed Lehman Brothers credit index, limiting the investors who can buy its bonds and raising borrowing costs.

http://finance.myway.com/ht/nw/bus/20051122/hlm_bus-rob282310.html

Recently, Google released a new feature called "Analytics." From thier new Analytics homepage;

Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. You'll be able to focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors.

For a technical guy like me, it begs the question, how? Without reading any further I'm assuming that webmasters would insert some HTML code that allows this new Analytics application to sense when someone accesses the website. It could be a JavaScript or a simple image placed on the page that is counted by Google. Let's see if I was right;

Simply paste the Google Analytics tracking code into each of your website pages and tracking begins immediately. No purchase process. No need to download anything. If you don't edit your own site, your webmaster, designer, or hosting provider can probably do it for you in under five minutes.

Under five minutes? For each page depending on the site design. Less than that on the sites I build though because I design for quick global changes. But I digress.

So, they are wanting webmasters to put a JavaScript file that is hosted on their servers onto every page of the domain. Interesting. Ever wonder what kind of information they can obtain? All kinds. Like, IP address, that is tied into your Internet Service Providers data which most times can tell what region of the country/world you are coming from. They can usually tell where you came from and where you went through referrers and link tracking. If they employ domain cookies, they now have the ability to set a cookie on your computer for each and every domain name you visit.

I remember a few short years ago, many people were screaming about the use of cookies and the invasion of privacy they could produce. Browser software was written to prevent "cross domain" cookies and scripts. This new Google tool potentially offers a means of circumventing these controls. There are some safety measures like offsite image controls and JavaScript blocking. I would guess that most people are not using those controls because it adversely affects their browsing experience. It's interesting how a little time will climatize people to the point of complacency.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some kind of conspiracy theorist or doomsayer, but I have found it interesting how few comments I have read/heard concerning the potential for abuse.

From a business standpoint, I will not be using the new free service. I protect my customers the best I can and part of that is to protect their business interests. I do not feel it is in the best interest of a business owner to allow another entity the ability to track, log and analyze the traffic patterns of their website. I don't think it is in the best interest of the business to allow the private usage information of their shoppers/visitors to be harvested and used in ways that are not in the control of the business owners. But hey, that's just my opinion.

From a big picture kind of economic standpoint, I think that allowing Google the ability to monitor the entire internet with live stats is a mistake. It's not just "Google" but any entity. (If Microsoft was offering this service, I wonder how loud the din of discontent would be.) To allow one corporation the ability to monitor a good percentage of the internet in real time give that entity an unfair advantage in my opinion. It could allow them to spot trends immediately, to build algorithms that would spot market potentials and even gather "inside information" about investments simply through monitoring the usage metrics. (I say could because I don't know that it is intended or even possible.)

If I were to make a prediction, I would say that this new tool will be embraced for the most part but in a few short months, it will be removed because of "bad press." That's just me, my opinion and my observations.

Reference: http://www.google.com/analytics/ 

The life if this small business owner has been turned upside down of late. With several new web clients, a new corporate division at the travel agency and a very active chamber of commerce & other associations calendar, it's very difficult to stay caught up on my reading and writing.

I started two different articles yesterday only to abandon them in the name of "best use of time." Instead, I cleaned off my desk, cleaned out my note books, even purged old files and shredded notes for an hour. It's been a great time to reorganize, restructure and refocus. Kind of like cleaning out the closet. It just gives a guy a good feeling.

I am working on an article about E-mail marketing. I hope to have it up later tonight or tomorrow morning.

I logged onto AOL today for the first time in a very long time. I own an account to check compatibility in AOL in my web development. When I singed up I selected the "Small Business" theme and this results in a few tasty tidbits for small business. Most of the content comes from Entrepreneur Magazine (of which I am now a subscriber), and it is quite useful. Many times is vague and I can write three or four volumes to elaborate on the concepts they touch on, but all in all it is thought provoking and interesting.

Today's article was "33 Marketing Success Tips" and it opens with a misspelled word and a little into, but the points are outstanding. Here are some great ideas. As you read the list, first think of a time you have done the idea, then (and this part hurts a little), think of how often you are doing it still. Our businesses are our lives and we should feed them by accomplishing these (and other) tasks more regularly than "Oh yeah, I did that once."

• Hand write a thank-you note to a prospect or customer
• Enter customer or prospect names into a database
• Brainstorm tagline ideas
• Visit a competitor's website
• Write an article to pitch to your local business organization
• Make a list of press release ideas
• Write a press release
• Call a newspaper and ask who the feature editor is for your area of expertise
• Compose an e-mail sales letter
• Call a few prospects or customers to get their e-mail contact information
• Develop a series of survey questions
• Brainstorm advertising concepts
• Write a pitch letter to a radio or TV station
• Get contact information from media outlets
• Plan a renaming of your products
• Work on new product development and introduction ideas
• Invite a customer or prospect to your office for coffee or to discuss new ideas
• Recognize a special prospect or customer
• Discuss a fusion marketing idea with a strategic business partner
• Visit a few marketing-related websites
• Post new information on your website
• Plan your networking calendar for the week
• Call to follow up with networking contacts
• Get price estimates for the printing and mailing of your direct-mail campaign
• Mail samples of your product to top prospects
• Brainstorm ideas for an "enter to win" contest
• Develop a coupon for your product or service
• Rewrite your phone's on-hold message script
• Write an article or other text for your newsletter
• Brainstorm new product or service ideas
• Plan a new customer service activity that will truly delight your customers
• Develop your benefit list and compare to it to your competitions'
• Develop a checklist, top-ten list or other information as a response to a marketing hook

Here is a link to the article.

33 Marketing Success Tips

Practice a few of these must-know marketing tips every day and build up your geurilla(sic)-marketing muscles. By Al Lautenslager

Part of the guerrilla marketing mindset suggests that you should be thinking about marketing all the time. Not just quarterly, not just monthly, not just weekly, but every single day. Really, it's not as hard as it sounds--there are quite a few ways you can incorporate marketing into your daily activities.

It's often said that doing anything for 21 days in a row will eventually turn into a habit for you. And a marketing habit is a great thing for any business to have. So what I'm going to suggest is that you choose three to five things every day that are related to marketing for your business and do them at the beginning of the day before you start fighting the daily fires--and forget all about your planned tasks.

http://www.aol.entrepreneur.com/aolsb/article/0,4558,323781,00.html