Online Marketing with Gasta Belfast and SurfNI.com: 2010

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Gasta Tech Update : Performance Marketing Industry

Gasta Tech Update : Performance Marketing Industry

This week, the vast majority of the performance marketing industry swarmed to San Francisco for one of three shows, the largest being the ritual we call ad:tech. There are two distinct sides to every show - the public face, that which we put on in meetings or working the booth and the private face which comes out during the parties. At any company, there is always the balance between the public and the private. When going to a show, we just end up seeing (and revealing) more of the private side than is typically the case. The private side doesn't just encompass the let loose attitude; it also includes the behind the scenes affairs that shape the company. The smaller the company and the longer you have worked there, the more you see. Even then, though, unless you founded the company, there exists another layer of activity and information, a layer about which gets whispered, discussed, and at times endlessly speculated, yet rarely revealed. And, it usually involves one of two things, relationships and money.

Infrequently, the veil of secrecy gets reveled, sometimes through an inadvertent admission, but other times tangentially, through the legal system. You will find no shortage of complaints, and some of the most frequent seem to involve trademark issues. The performance marketing space had its issues with trademark complaints during the flog era, but many of those suits didn't say much outside of letting people know a company was being sued. On occasion, though, you will find one that addresses one of the whispered about, but rarely confirmed, areas of relationship and money. Such happened when I came across Delaware Courtlink case CA5016.

Like any complaint, the first part outlines the basics of the case, and in typical legalese, the language doesn't make it accessible to the average person. Luckily, this one starts straightforward enough. "Plantiff brings this Complaint to enjoin [Defendant's] sale of his outstanding shares of common stock in [Company] to [Private Equity Firm]" After a trip to m-w.com to look up that enjoin means prohibit by legal action, what we have is a case of one Co-founder looking to stop another Co-founder from selling equity to an outside investor. One co-founder suing another probably happens more than I would imagine, as we read about with a CPA network in LA, but in this case, it would be the equivalent of discovering that the two founders of Epic suddenly never spoke when everyone else assumes them to be the best of friends.

This company about the same time as Epic, in 2000, and similar to Epic, known then as Azoogle Ads, saw rapid growth. This one went from sub-seven figure revenue in 2000 to nine-figure revenues six years later. Do that in high interest industries, such as internet advertising, and you will start to attract the attention of outside investors. And, like Epic, this company fielded no shortage of inquires from the the venture community, especially those interested in later stage investments. The better known now, but not all common knowledge to the average employee, is that what happens with many later stage investments, namely that the founders get to benefit directly. Some of it gets used for operations, but part of the appeal for the founders comes from being able to cash-in. And, this happened here, when the two founders agreed to an investment of $150mm into the company; it was $150mm for a large but not controlling interest. The deal closed February 12, 2008, and while, neither founder knew it at the time, the closing of the deal was the beginning of the end of their relationship as they knew it.

I don't want to speculate on the founder's of Azoogle's situation, but in many self-funded success stories, making money comes before process. That means much of the corporate administration gets relegated to the backburner. You don't think about equity incentive programs for example, and, it also tends to mean avoiding some very difficult founder to founder discussions. You don't want to doubt your founder, to argue with them. You picked them initially because you feel like you can trust them. You have their back and they yours. It's like dating. You've found someone you like and are excited to make it work, so you leave a lot of questions unasked, because like a relationship, you don't want to kill the romance. But, starting a company isn't like dating, it's marriage, so you have to talk through the hard decisions early on. Doing so isn't easy, because it means some tense moments and a greater likelihood that you won't work together than if you just jumped into it, which is what so many do.

In dating, you get to take your time understanding the person and making sure your mutual needs get met. After a period of time, you might choose to take the relationship to the next level and get married. Co-founding a company is no different, except that you shouldn't do it until you have truly dated the other co-founder. How can you make sure you meet each others needs if you don't really know them? That is what happened with these two founders. Their relationship, like many actual marriages, ended in divorce, taking a lengthy six years to unravel. The company was their kid and this lawsuit is almost like a custody battle and it wasn't just money that caused the two to part ways; it was a story of trust and perceived betrayal, like being cheated on which caused a quick and deep split. The details, though, would have not been known, if a suit was not filed.

Friday, April 02, 2010

Gasta Money: Warren Buffet’s unsolicited

The financial world is abuzz with news of Warren Buffet’s unsolicited takeover bid for Kayla Summers' lemonade stand. We’ll start there in our look at the significant financial events happening this week.

In Pictures: Baby Buffett Portfolio - His 6 Best Long-Term Picks

Warren Buffett Invests $2 billion In Girl’s Lemonade Stand
The Oracle of Omaha has found it harder and harder to keep coattail investors guessing as to where he will invest next. On Wednesday, it was reported that Mr. Buffett walked to his office and bought a cup of lemonade from 10-year-old Kayla Summers. Impressed by the girl’s sales ability and low overhead - her mom pays for the lemons - Buffett sunk $2 billion into her operations. Asked what she would do with the money, Kayla responded that she had plans to "buy a pony." Berkshire shares rose 4% on the news.

Stock Market Future Found in a Tattoo
Jack "Switchblade" Adams, 45, discovered an unexpected boon in the tattoos he received during a career with the merchant marines. By his own admission, Adams was "blind drunk" when he wandered into a tattoo hut in Singapore, Bangkok, or Shanghai.

"I can’t rightly remember which," he said, "there was this old woman with a glass eye and a parrot, or maybe the parrot had the glass eye."

Two days later and back at sea, Adams and his comrades admired the simplistic tattoo that everyone assumed was a stylistic mountain range. Five years later, Adams noticed an eerie similarity between the tattoo and the historical graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average that appeared in a newspaper.

To test his theory, Adams compared the paper to his tattoo and identified the 2008 drop followed by an extended rally. He went to a stockbroker and sold the market short. When the drop occurred, Adams took his profits and went long, making a 600% return on the trade. (For more on the Dow, see How Now, Dow? What Moves The DJIA?)

More Greeks Move to Atlantis
Faced with a government bond default, tax increases and service cuts, legions of Greeks have decided to leave their homeland and move to the fabled city of Atlantis.

"I've never heard of anyone paying taxes in Atlantis," Adrian, a student at Athens University pointed out, "I just wish someone had marked the Pillars of Hercules on the map."

Long line-ups at sporting goods stores fought for a limited supply of oxygen tanks - and even snorkels were fetching hundreds of euros. Greek officials pointed out that no one knew where Atlantis actually was, but other European Union members welcomed Atlantis into the Eurozone in the hope that its debt-free balance sheet could help shore up the Greek economy. (Learn more about what's been happening in Greece in EU Economics: It's All Greek To Me.)

Fed Accidently Leaves the Printing Press On
On Monday, an embarrassed Ben Bernanke told the public that he and other Fed officials accidently left the printing press running all weekend.

"I remember hitting the lights and I asked Donny [Vice Chairman Donald Kohn] to make sure the press was off. Apparently, he didn’t hear me," Bernanke explained to reporters.

It’s estimated that almost $3 trillion is set to enter the system, guaranteeing a sharp rise in inflation and drop in purchasing power. Bernanke encouraged people to look on the bright side.
"This will help pay down our foreign debts and balance the budget in one fell swoop," he said. " It's kinda lucky that way."

In addition, Bernanke explained that very few people will actually feel poorer and that, other than the severed hand of the American ambassador to China that arrived in the mail, there was little in the way of negative responses.

"It’s a lot easier than those Treasury bond purchases, anyhow," Bernanke added. "Congress has told us to just let the bugger run."

Man Makes a Fortune In Stocks He Almost Bought
Back in the 1980s, Randy Wallace began keeping a list of stocks he almost bought. His list included many of today’s top companies when they were just starting out.

"I thought to myself, computers look like a sure thing. So I wrote down a couple companies like Microsoft (NYSE:MSFT) - back then no one was paying attention to them - and added in some others like Coca Cola (NYSE:KO) and McDonalds (NYSE:MCD). I had $10,000 to put into them, and I almost did."

By tracking his near miss portfolio if he had bought and held it, Wallace discovered that he was a multimillionaire in an alternate universe.

What did he actually buy with the money?

"GM and Chrysler stock."

Conclusion: April Fools
If you are a Greek merchant marine with a bad tattoo, a parrot with a glass eye, own shares in GM and Chrysler or collect a salary in U.S. dollars, then I’m deeply sorry - but you can take solace in the fact that you’re one of a kind.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Gasta Update: The PR Insider

How Not to Do a TV Interview by PR Insider
4 "Don'ts" to Keep In Mind to Ensure You Don't Blow it
Sometimes I feel bad for on-air TV personalities, because if you're on television regularly for any length of time, you're going to screw up. It's inevitable. It's the law of averages, and when you do, YouTube will be sure to archive it for future generations.

The Internet is stockpiled with videos of show hosts forgetting the camera was on, dropping four-letter words and losing it when heckled by onlookers off camera. The same is true with public relations, because we're not immune to gaffs, and neither are our clients. One of my staff likes to tell the story of a New York politician who was caught not paying taxes in the middle of a re-election campaign, and so his PR rep wanted to shield him from too many questions. To combat that, he scheduled an outdoor press conference in the dead of the afternoon on the hottest day of the year, hoping the heat would shorten the length of the press conference and thin the crowd of reporters because they didn't want to be outside. The press conference went off as planned in the sweltering afternoon sun, and 10 minutes into it, his candidate passed out from heat stroke.

So, when you're thinking of doing TV interviews, here are some basic, and not so basic, dos and don'ts to help you through the rough patches:
Don't look at the monitor - If you've never done TV before, the first thing you'll notice in a guest segment is that when you sit down at the set, there are tons of distractions - monitors showing all the camera angles, cameramen rolling the cameras to different positions, and producers who like to move around the set. Forget them. Look at the person interviewing you, as if you were just having a cup of coffee with them at the local Starbucks.
Don't Let a Stumble Stop the Interview - Most interviews are either live, or what they call "live to tape," meaning they are taped segments, but they are not edited. That means whatever happens during the segment, mistakes and all, is what they run. So, if you stumble over your words or cough or accidentally spit out the gum in your mouth (that you should have spit out before the interview), you just have to keep going. No matter what, in most cases you'll have one take, and whatever happens, well, happens. Don't stop and say "Cut, can we do this again please?" because that is what will air.
Don't Do Your "Elevator Pitch" - When being interviewed, you should answer the host's questions directly, and not go into your stock company pitch right off the bat. That will only annoy the host, and make them ask the question again (which will make you look foolish). If you are concerned, try to talk to the producer in advance about what questions you'll be asked. If the producer is vague, or doesn't give you the exact questions, then simply be ready for whatever they throw at you.
Don't Move in a Distracting Way - A news segment is not "Dancing with the Stars," so don't move too much when you're being interviewed. If you naturally gesture when you talk, then gesture, but don't go overboard. Sweeping hand gestures are distracting. If you're standing during the interview, try to stand still. Place your feet at shoulder-width so maintain balance, and don't bounce around. Bobbing, weaving, pacing or any other kind of nervous movement will be distracting. Moreover, if you are sitting, don't do the nervous knee bounce that many people are used to doing under the table in the board room. There is no table, and the camera will pick it up. Remember, being stationary and relaxed will help you exude confidence on camera.
The main "don't," however, is don't try to perform. Just be yourself, represent your company professionally and allow the expert in you to rise to the surface. That's the reason they booked you, and that's who they want to put on TV.

If you've gotten yourself booked on a TV interview, congratulations, you've secured a few precious minutes on a platform which can be incredibly valuable to the promotion of your company and products. How else can you reach a captive audience who will see your product, hear you tell them about its benefits, and watch their favorite TV personality give it a "thumbs up"?

A TV appearance is one of the most valuable marketing opportunities around, so it's important to make it a success. And if you ace your TV interview, you are much more likely to be invited back!

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Gasta Tech Newsletter : AdMob Latest

News from AdMob on Gasta.com

Omar Hamoui - "It's a Cross Platform World Again"

When I started AdMob in January 2006 I was trying to solve a problem I had as a developer: reaching consumers who were interested in my mobile website and finding a way to monetize my traffic. After realizing that no simple mobile advertising service existed to help me, I decided to focus on building the mobile ad platform that would become AdMob. I figured there were probably plenty of small mobile developers out there with great ideas who just needed a way to spread the word about their products, and to make some money once they gained usage. Turns out there were. Visit our blog to continue reading Omar’s post.

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New SDKs for Android, iPhone and Flash Lite

Developers are increasingly building their applications for multiple platforms and we want to support easy monetization solutions across as many of those platforms as possible. So today we are happy to announce the release of important updates to our existing Android and iPhone SDKs and a new SDK for Flash Lite. Visit our blog to read more about each SDK release.

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New Publisher Tools for Managing Your Mobile Business
Today we launched a number of great tools designed to enable publishers to more efficiently manage their AdMob account. The release includes a new Publisher Dashboard, an Enhanced Reporting UI, a new Reporting API (beta) and new Server Side Controls. Visit our blog to learn more about each tool.

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Introducing: Adaptive Mobile Ad Unit

Today launched a new Adaptive Mobile Ad Unit that allows content providers with a desktop website to serve mobile targeted ads to users accessing the page from a mobile device. Currently only available on the iPhone, the Adaptive Mobile Ad Unit automatically scales itself, regardless of zoom level, to render at the native resolution of the device. Visit our blog to view a video demo of this innovative new ad unit.

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Developer Day This Thursday

Please join us for AdMob’s first Developer Day, this Thursday March 25th at 1pm in Astaria Restaurant in San Mateo. See demos of our new launches and chat with members of AdMob's engineering and product teams. We’ll also be sharing results from our recent Publisher Survey as well as hosting a panel of industry experts. To view a detailed agenda for the event, please visit our blog.

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Transfer Bonus Increased to 30% Until March 31st

In addition to showing ads and earning revenue, many AdMob publishers also advertise throughout our network of sites and apps to help promote their mobile properties. Normally we grant a 20% bonus on publisher funds transferred to an advertiser account, but we are offering a 30% bonus ending on March 31st. Learn more and transfer funds by logging in, clicking on the Account tab and then clicking on Transfer Funds.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Gasta Tech: Hitwise news

Experian Launches Hitwise Internet Measurement Services for France
Search Terms Analysis
Search Analysis - 'olympics'
Fast Mover
Vancouver 2010 - Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games: www.vancouver2010.com
Leveraging Competitive Intelligence
Benchmark Your Online Performance
Category Spotlight
Shopping and Classifieds - Flowers and Gifts
Hitwise Intelligence Blogs
Superbowl Ad Searches
Events
Where is Experian Hitwise?

Feature Article
Experian Launches Hitwise Internet Measurement Services for France
Experian has further expanded its Marketing Services portfolio in Europe with the launch of Experian Hitwise in France. Experian's Internet measurement service will help domestic and international marketers operating in France to improve their online marketing, content development, affiliate strategies and search tactics.

Experian Hitwise is reporting on more than 75,000 websites across 100+ industries and over 1 million search terms, based on the anonymized and aggregated Internet activity of 90,000 French Internet users from all over the country. Experian Hitwise also operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and Brazil.

View the rest of article.

Search Terms Analysis
Search Analysis - 'olympics'
Hitwise Search Intelligence™ data reveals the top websites from the complete list of websites that received traffic from the search term 'olympics'. The results are ordered based on the volume of traffic for the week ending February 20, 2010.
Most popular websites that received traffic from â€˜olympics' for the week ending 02/20/10
Rank Website Domain Share
1. NBC Olympics www.nbcolympics.com 38.74%
2. Vancouver 2010 - Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games www.vancouver2010.com 20.46%
3. Google News news.google.com 4.09%
4. Tourism British Columbia www.hellobc.com 3.84%
5. IOC Official Website www.olympic.org 3.38%
6. Yahoo Sports - Olympics sports.yahoo.com/olympics 2.96%
7. Facebook www.facebook.com 2.78%
8. Wikipedia www.wikipedia.org 1.64%
9. ESPN www.espn.com 0.99%
10. Reuters www.reuters.com 0.85%

Fast Movers
Vancouver 2010 - Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games: www.vancouver2010.com

Rank week ending - February 20, 2010 - 213
Rank week ending - February 13, 2010 - 877
Positions jumped - 664

The Vancouver 2010 - Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games website moved up 664 positions among all websites visited by U.S. Internet users (week ending February 20, 2010) to rank number 213 overall and number 10 in the Sports industry. Of the website's total traffic, 56 percent consisted of new visitors. The top three websites visited after the Vancouver 2010 website were Facebook, Google and YouTube.

The top DMA® (Designated Marketed Areas) of visitors to the Vancouver 2010 website were from Los Angeles, CA (11.13%), New York, NY (7.19%) and Chicago, IL (4.09%). The majority of visitors to the website were male (56%), aged 35-44 years (29%) with a household income of $60-$100K per year (30%) for the four weeks ending 02/20/10. Other websites with a similar demographic profile to the Vancouver 2010 website were Google Docs, MSN - Wonderwall and Yahoo! Sports - Olympics.

Leveraging Competitive Intelligence
Benchmark Your Online Performance
By using Hitwise Rankings reports, you can monitor a website's ranking by visits, pages, or average session time against your industry, for specific time periods. For example, if you are looking to advertise on a media website, using Hitwise Rankings reports you will discover that of all the websites in the Canada Broadcast Media industry, international websites CNN and BBC News attract the highest market share of visitors at 19.33% and 11.73% respectively, while a local station like CP24 attracts 2.47% for the week ending 02/20/10. Using this information, you can determine that media websites foreign to Canada could be better to partner with in order drive more traffic to your website. This data is useful to gauge online market share of traffic.

For Hitwise clients who would like to discuss this application further, please contact Hitwise Customer Support, or visit the Hitwise University and review the Rankings Fact Sheet or view the Benchmarking Online Performance Best Practice Review.

To learn more about Hitwise Rankings reports, click here.
Top websites for Canada Broadcast Media Industry for the week ending 02/20/10
Rank Website Domain Share
1. CNN.com www.cnn.com 19.33%
2. BBC News news.bbc.co.uk 11.73%
3. MSNBC www.msnbc.com 8.53%
4. Le Canal Nouvelles lcn.canoe.ca 4.39%
5. Al Jazeera www.aljazeera.net 3.50%
6. Bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com 3.37%
7. ABCnews.com www.abcnews.com 3.15%
8. TVGuide.ca www.tvguide.ca 2.79%
9. Fox News www.foxnews.com 2.49%
10. CP24 www.cp24.com 2.47%

Category Spotlight
Shopping and Classifieds - Flowers and Gifts
This category includes sites that provide flower sales and delivery, as well as sites that specialize in the sale of gifts. It incorporates both online and offline vendors. The data below is based on All sites - Weekly rankings for the week ending 02/20/2010 - Ranks by 'Visits.'
Shopping and Classifieds - Flowers and Gifts - All sites - Weekly rankings for the week ending 02/20/2010 - Ranks by 'Visits'
Rank Website
1. Gifts.com
2. Hallmark.com
3. Collections Etc
4. Florists' Transworld Delivery
5. DaySpring Cards
6. ProFlowers
7. The Lakeside Collection
8. Teleflora
9. 1-800-flowers.com
10. PersonalizationMall.com

Local Competitiveness Index

97.5%
of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.

Top 10 Upstream Industries
Rank Industries Upstream Clicks
1. Computers and Internet 55.29%
2. Search Engines (Computers and Internet) 35.16%
3. Shopping and Classifieds 21.50%
4. Email Services (Computers and Internet) 10.35%
5. Rewards and Directories (Shopping and Classifieds) 6.29%
6. Social Networking and Forums (Computers and Internet) 5.61%
7. Flowers and Gifts (Shopping and Classifieds) 4.57%
8. Lifestyle 4.47%
9. Entertainment 3.99%
10. Business and Finance 3.57%

Top 10 Downstream Industries
Rank Industries Downstream Clicks
1. Shopping and Classifieds 35.00%
2. Computers and Internet 23.74%
3. Search Engines (Computers and Internet) 9.06%
4. Flowers and Gifts (Shopping and Classifieds) 8.16%
5. Business and Finance 7.61%
6. Rewards and Directories (Shopping and Classifieds) 7.60%
7. Entertainment 6.64%
8. Lifestyle 6.25%
9. Social Networking and Forums (Computers and Internet) 5.96%
10. Department Stores (Shopping and Classifieds) 5.80%

Hitwise Intelligence Blogs
Superbowl Ad Searches
February 22, 2010 - Heather Dougherty

As a follow up to my blog post about the lift in traffic to websites advertised during the Super Bowl, I thought it would be interesting to see which advertisers were searched most often. Among the search queries that were related to Super Bowl ads during the week ending February 13, 2010, the top ten were mostly generic searches for ads & commercials. Two specific ads were mentioned in the top ten search terms - Doritos and Tim Tebow for 'Focus on the Family'. Overall 7.5% of the traffic to the portfolio was from paid listings and 'super bowl commercials 2010' was the top paid term.

View the rest of this blog post.

Events
Where is Experian Hitwise?
SMX West
March 2 - 4 - Santa Clara, CA
We are pleased to offer you a special discount off registration. Use the code: smx10hitwise at registration. Don't forget to visit the Experian Hitwise booth in the exhibit hall!

Hitwise University Live at TravelCom - The Online Travel Persona
March 9 at 4:00PM (CST) - Dallas, TX
How well do you know your customers? Your competitor's? In this University Live session, Bill Tancer will introduce you to the latest data to define your current and target customer with Experian Hitwise online behavioral data. RSVP to attend.

TravelCom
March 9 -11 - Dallas, TX
Join Bill Tancer, General Manager, Global Research at Experian Hitwise as he speaks on the panel 'Online Consumer Behaviors, Patterns and Trends' on Wednesday, March 10 at 9:00AM (CST). Don't forget to visit the Experian Hitwise booth in the exhibit hall!

Portrait of a Digital Consumer
March 23 at 12:00PM (EST)
Join Experian Marketing Services data experts for this webinar and you will hear how today's consumers interact with digital media, which channels they prefer, their demographics and how you can reach them with the right message. Register.
Media queries at Hitwise
If you are interested in using Hitwise content and statistics in publications and presentations, we encourage you to do so. Please source the content as "Hitwise North America - www.hitwise.com/us".
Additionally - if you require assistance with statistics or content, please feel free to contact Matt Tatham at press@hitwise.com.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Warren Buffet on Consumer "Fads" That Haven't Faded

Gasta.com Warren Buffet updates by Investopedia.com
Consumer "Fads" That Haven't Faded
Consumer "Fads" That Haven't Faded
Whether it is skinny jeans and asymmetric haircuts or stuffed animals and comfortable but unattractive shoes, fads are always coming and going. Some fads, however, don't seem to go anywhere. Here are some unique products that were assumed to be a passing fancy, but stuck around anyway.

Bottled Water
Bottled Water
When the first cases of bottled water hit supermarket shelves, many people wondered why they should pay for something they have always gotten for free. Apparently, the package makes all the difference. In 2006, the global bottled water market was valued at approximately $60.9 billion. By 2011, the market is expected to grow to $86.4 billion.

Read: Pet Clothing and Accessories
Pet Clothing and Accessories
Many people took dog fashion for a joke, but retailers are the ones laughing all the way to the bank. Approximately 62% of all American households own a pet, and 77.5 million of those pets are dogs. In 2008, pet-related spending was approximately $43.4 billion. Right behind pet food, dog supplies and accessories accounted for the largest portion of sales dollars associated with pets.

Energy Drinks
Energy drinks are designed to give their consumers a temporary boost, and they've created a permanent position for themselves in the drink market. Since the 1990s, the now-popular drinks have grown to provide a massive, lasting boost to the bottom lines of many drink manufacturers. Some critics initially dismissed energy drinks because of their main ingredients (sugar and caffeine) and lack of mainstream appeal. Granted, people may not be sipping on energy drinks around their dinner tables, but sales in bars, restaurants and gas stations more than pick up the slack. The domestic market for energy drinks is expected to exceed $9 billion by 2011.

Tickle Me Elmo
This Sesame Street character had been reaching kids in living rooms everywhere via the television for years. In 1996, Mattel released a doll version of the lovable Muppet. When squeezed repeatedly, Tickle Me Elmo would shake and laugh. Since then, several editions of the popular doll have remained on the wish lists of children nationwide. Last year, the original Tickle Me Elmo was re-released.

Harry Potter

The first book in this seven part series, "Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone" was originally published in Britain in 1997. Soon after, its name was altered for release in the United States and the rest is history. Several of the books were adapted into box office record-breaking movies, and the series has also been translated into over 60 different languages. Once dubbed a fad, the tales of "the boy who lived" turned J.K. Rowling into the first person to become a billionaire by writing books.

Diets
Every fad diet offers a supposedly new solution to deal with age old problem of wanting to lose weight. In recent years, some of the most popular diets have included the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet and the Lemonade Diet. Each diet may follow a boom and bust cycle, but the field of products or plans offering quicker than usual weight loss always seems to have customers.

Consumer "Fads" That Haven't Faded
Nothing is certain in the world of fads other than the fact that new ones are born every day. For each one that emerges, another awaits to take its place. Even for the fads that have managed to achieve a longer than average shelf life, the clock is ticking. (Learn more in Make Money With The Consumer Cyclical And Staple Indicator.)

7 Ways To Position Yourself For Recovery

In a gloomy economic marketplace, it's easy to have a negative outlook on the future. Many become worried about the state of the economy and simply focus on surviving and staying afloat amidst the uncertainty.

What many of us forget is that economies recover, although we rarely know when. But if you prepare yourself for the road ahead, your financial outlook for the new economy will leave you sitting pretty.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Gasta.com SEO marketing Update:

Top Ten Google SEO Ranking Factors

Gasta.com search engine network continues its massive growth with a 900% increase in search traffic for January 2010

People don’t really understand that there are many different factors that fall into place when determining where a website ranks in the Google search engine results. Some things to keep in mind when you are wondering why your site doesn’t rank well. It is not always just the obvious reasons that are holding it back.

Over the past years by reading Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, Google SEO Starter Guide, many other industry blogs and by actually doing professional SEO and internet marketing since the late 1990’s, I have gathered data and come to a boiled down short list of the most important Google search engine ranking factors.

Here is the list of my top 10 of important Google SEO ranking factors to consider:

1. Age of Domain: Age of URL is very important. If you just bought your domain a few weeks or even months ago you have a long road ahead of you. The reality is the age of your website helps build trust. If your website has been online for several years, chances are you have an established business.

2. Domain Hosting: Where is your site hosted? Find out through your hosting company what continent or country your site is hosted in. This can often times play a large role in search rankings. Always use a reputable hosting company. If your company is US based then use a hosting company in the United States. Also, I always recommend a dedicated IP when you can. There are virtual dedicated and cloud hosting solutions that are more affordable. Never use the cheapest hosting. The reality is, if you cannot afford hosting you should re-consider the business…I know this is harsh but very true. :)

3. Your Neighbors: If you have a virtual server, which sites like Godaddy usually are have been known to house hundreds of websites on one server. Make sure that your neighbors on your server are not classified as spam.

4. URL Structure: Make sure your URL structures are very clean. There should not be any random strings of characters at the end of your URL’s. This is part of the onsite search engine optimization process as well.

5. Content: Content is very important. To start make sure you have text on all your important pages, then make sure it is good text consisting of your targeted keywords spread throughout naturally. Simply put, ALWAYS write your content for humans, your website visitors first and NEVER write content for the solo purpose to achieve Google search engine rankings. Chances are the content will not be user focused or provide value to your visitors.

6. Internal Link Structure: Make sure your inner pages are linked correctly. Visitors should have easy made pathways connecting to your other pages from every page of your website. Make sure the code of your website is verified and keep flash and JavaScript to a minimum, if you can. Essentially make sure the site is clean, easy to use and interlinked to help the user experience.

7. Trust: Do you at least have a mailing address listed on your website? You should if you don’t. Google likes to see trust factors on websites so anything you can add that could help build trust for your audience will benefit your rankings. I always recommend having a phone number on each page of your website. Make it easy for people to do business with you, it all starts with establishing trust and that starts with contact information on your website.

8. Keywords: Make sure your website is optimized using your keywords. This means any alt tags for images, meta page information and existing content at the very least of things. Remember to naturally optimize your website based on the content of each page of your website.

9. Bounce Rate: Although bounce rate might not seem important if Google sees that nobody hangs out on your website for more than a few seconds before they leave this could be a ranking problem over time. Make changes to get visitors engaged with your website. Simple things, like video, newsletter sign up, call to actions, etc will help improve your bounce rate over time. Make sure you have proper tracking on your website, such as Google analytics.

10. Outbound links: Make sure the websites that you link to are 100% relevant to your business and industry. If you sell animals toys but you are linking to a site that sells shoes that is not very relevant and over time could really impact your rankings. Bottom line is if it makes sense to link to another site, then do so, but remember you could be sending your visitors away from your site.

11. Inbound Links: I know this was a list of my top 10, but I felt I had to mention inbound links. The key here (speaking as a white hat SEO person), don’t buy or exchange links. Market and promote your business online to build visitors to your website over time. If you do, then the relevant links will follow!

**Note: As the Google (and yes there are 2 other major search engines!) algorithm changes there are always new ranking factors that come into play, such as the page load time and many others. I am sure when I re-do this list a year from now, there may be another one or two additional factors.

There are many extensive factors that Google uses when determining website rankings. Very important to get these factors correct otherwise you could find yourself just spinning your wheels. The bottom line is it is all about relevancy and earning your visitors (and yes Google’s) search engine trust over time.

by Nick Stamoulis on Thursday, January 14, 2010

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Gasta.com stock tips

A Closer Look At The Market Leaders
Gasta search engine network surges again in Europe's fastrack systems as a rising star of search.

One method for gauging the strength of any given market is to track the action of its leaders. Market leaders are typically widely held by institutions and their behavior can provide a clue to market sentiment. Weakness in market leaders is often a clear warning that all is not well in the markets. After all, the general markets will rarely make a sustained move without the cooperation of market leaders.

One of the key groups that has been leading the markets higher over the past several months has been the large cap technology stocks. Leadership from this group is healthy, as it shows an appetite for risk-taking in new and emerging technologies from speculators. Market leadership from innovative companies is healthy, rather than leadership coming from ties to a falling currency or a flight to safety.

Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL) is one company that has been regarded as a market leader over the past few years. AAPL has managed to recover all of its bear market declines and was recently trading at a new all-time high. However, despite the longer term strength, AAPL has been showing signs of weakening recently. It closed under its 50-day moving average in January and has failed to reclaim it in subsequent trading. It has also transitioned into a lateral trend after a strong rally over the past year. While AAPL hasn’t broken down, it is vulnerable to further weakness. The $190 area appears to be a key level of support and has contained prior pullbacks. (For further reading, check out Support & Resistance Basics.)

Source: StockCharts.com

Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) is another stock widely regarded as a market leader. While GOOG has erased much of its bear market declines, it has underperformed AAPL and remains off its all-time highs. It also fell beneath its 50-day moving average in January, as the general markets experienced some weakness through earnings season. GOOG is currently attempting to stabilize near $525 and is also vulnerable to further weakness. If GOOG were to continue falling, the $500 level, which is near the 200-day moving average, could act as the next support level.

Source: StockCharts.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN) is a great example of an innovative company becoming a market leader. Much like AAPL, the company has been leading the current rally and also recently traded to new all-time highs. While AMZN has outperformed over several months, it has been suffering through a correction over the past few weeks. AMZN completed a double top earlier this year and is threatening to fill a bullish gap it created last autumn. The $114-$116 area has been defended by the bulls and remains a key level to watch. (For more insight, check out Analyzing Chart Patterns.)

Source: StockCharts.com

International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) is one stock that isn’t often mentioned when talking about a market leader, but stepping back and looking at the longer term chart it becomes clear that this has been one of the strongest of the large cap stocks. It also recently traded above its prior bull market highs and was only a few points from new all-time highs. But despite the longer term strength, this is another stock suffering through some near-term weakness. It also sliced through its 50-day moving average and is attempting to stabilize near a prior pivot area. The 200-day moving average looms below and could act as a price magnet over the next few weeks.

Source: StockCharts.com
Bottom Line
While the majority of these stocks have not technically broken down, they are all suffering through bouts of near-term selling. As market leaders, it will be difficult for the general markets to gain much traction without their participation. Most of these stocks are near support levels that could lead to a respite in the selling. However, it’s possible that these levels will fail, leading to the formation of a more serious topping pattern. This would likely lead the markets lower as a deeper correction sets in. It is too early to know what the outcome will be, but these stocks should certainly be watched by traders.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Gasta Investment news: Ivestopedia Trade

Gasta Investment news

The Weekly Report For February 8th - February 12th, 2010

Gasta.com star shines brightly in European Search Markets.

Commentary: This was one of the most volatile weeks the markets have had in quite some time. The markets began the week attempting to bounce from near term oversold conditions and rallying to the prior weeks highs. However, they gave way to steep declines on Thursday and most of Friday on a large increase in volume. By mid-day Friday, it seemed like the indexes would finish off the week at their lows but in the afternoon the bulls mounted a strong assault on the bears, firmly reversing the intraday trend. All the indexes finished with slight gains on huge volume, while trading well off their intraday lows and forming a candle pattern commonly referred to as a hammer.

IN PICTURES: 7 Tools Of The Trade

The hammer can be seen quite clearly in the S&P500 as represented by the S&P 500 SPDRS (NYSE:SPY) ETF. The candle is called a hammer because it has a long lower portion resembling the handle coupled with the upper portion acting as the hammer head. The long lower portion indicates buyers stepping up and pushing the ETF’s price well off the lows. This candle can often show a near term turning point, as it shows a complete change in character for market participants. Sellers were well in control pushing the ETF well into the negative column, but by the end of the day had lost complete control to the bulls.

The Diamonds Trust, Series 1 (NYSE:DIA) ETF also shows a similar candle pattern. The reversal also occurred in an area of expected support, which shows buyers were willing to come in at these levels. The $100 level for DIA corresponds with the 10,000 level for the Dow Jones Industrial Average which has been an important psychological area for the markets. The lows underneath the hammer are now an important line in the sand for market bulls. While it appears the bulls have stepped up and defended an important area, there is still much work left for the bulls. The markets remains beneath falling moving averages and under a large price cluster.

This also quite evident in the smallcaps as represented by the iShares Russell 2000 Index (NYSE:IWM) ETF. Despite the strong intraday reversal, IWM remains below the majority of even Thursday’s trading action. Often the strong reversal at support is merely the first step in a stabilization process and the markets will often return to test this level after the initial bounce. For IWM, $58 will be an important area to hold as support as it attempts to consolidate the recent declines.

The Powershares QQQ ETF (Nasdaq:QQQQ) have been one of the weaker groups recently, but started to reverse earlier than its counterparts intraday on Friday. This was one of the first clues that hinted at the hammer being formed. If the markets are going to put in a near term low in this area, then this group will need to continue resuming its leadership role. Much like the other ETF’s, the lows under the hammer have now become an important line in the sand and would need to hold to stave off a more serious decline.

Bottom Line
While the hammer can show a change in character, it does not offer any insight into the strength or target of a reversal. It merely shows that the bears were losing steam and that there are buyers at this level. What happens over the next few days will have important implications for the next intermediate term move. The markets have drawn a line in the sand dividing a run of the mill bull market correction, from a more serious top being put in place. A move of consequence below the hammers on these charts could signal a major trend change and will be a key level to watch moving forward. There is still excess supply that will need to be absorbed and the next few weeks could be messy for traders on either side. It will be interesting to see if the bulls have staved off a top to the current rally.

Use the Investopedia Stock Simulator to trade the stocks mentioned in this stock analysis, risk free!

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Gasta Tech Update: Facebook Adds 5 Million Users in January

Gasta social marketing tools for Facebook and Twitter lead to massive traffic increase for 2010

How does the biggest social networking site kick off a new year? By adding 5 million new users.

This is what Facebook did in January, according to Inside Facebook. According to the company’s findings, Facebook ended January with 108 million U.S. users, up from 103 million in December.

Men between the ages of 26 and 34 made up the largest gain, with more than 600,000 of users in this group joining the popular social networking site in January. Women between 18 and 25 followed behind with 581,000 new members in the first month of 2010.

As has been reported in earlier months, older age groups are still the fastest-growing Facebook populations. In January, men between 45 and 54 grew 10.5 percent, or by 472,000 new members. Women between 55 and 65 followed close behind with 9.4 percent growth, or 391,000 new members to the social network.

Eric Eldon at Inside Facebook conjectures at why this happened in January.

“It’s possible that lots of Facebook-using younger people went home for the holidays and made their parents sign up. Facebook saw massive traffic spikes around Christmas and New Year’s, according to Hitwise, and we wonder if this was when thousands of Facebook evangelists fired up the computer — or laptop, or netbook, or iPhone — and taught their relatives how Facebook works.”

Still, older age groups are relatively small on Facebook. Users between 45 and 54 make up 12 percent of the social network’s population, while just 7 percent are between 55 and 65.

About 52 percent of all users of Facebook are between 18 and 34, while 56 percent of all users are women.

According to comScore, Facebook finished 2009 with 111.9 million users, more than doubling its user base of 54.6 million users in December 2008.

Though the social network is thriving, it has encountered many lawsuits along the way. Recent cases involve click fraud and copyright infringement over a third-party application.

Sources:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=121679

http://blog.comscore.com/2010/01/strong_year_for_facebook.html

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/02/01/facebooks-january-us-traffic-by-age-and-sex-growth-led-by-young-women-grown-men-and-their-parents/#comments

http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2010/01/facebook_user_a_1.htm

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=121682

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Gasta.com tech news: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Gasta Update Berkshire Hathaway Inc

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is getting ready to split the company's Class B shares next Thursday as part of its plan to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.

The 50-for-1 stock split, which shareholders will vote on Wednesday, will boost the liquidity of Berkshire's stock, and enable Berkshire to offer even small BNSF shareholders Berkshire stock as part of its $26.3 billion cash and stock deal.

The added liquidity Berkshire will have as a result of the split will also increase the chances that the Omaha-based company will join the S&P 500 index. Berkshire's Class A shares, which are the nation's most expensive stock, and its Class B shares have been difficult to trade because of their high prices.

Berkshire's Class A shares, which sold for $97,500 Friday, are not being split.

Class B shares, dubbed "Baby Berkshires," were first issued in 1996 to meet demand from smaller investors and discourage investment firms from reselling pieces of Berkshire's original shares — which became the Class A shares.

Buffett declined to discuss the stock split Friday, ahead of Wednesday's special shareholder meeting in Omaha. Berkshire's board has said in documents sent to shareholders that it supports the split regardless of the BNSF deal.

Next week's split will make the $3,247 Class B shares significantly more affordable: They will be worth $64.94 apiece. That will take the B shares from 1/30th the value of a Class A share to 1/1,500th of Berkshire's Class A shares.

"Now everybody will have access to it," said Andy Kilpatrick, the stockbroker-author who wrote "Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett."

The fact that the split may lead to inclusion in the S&P 500 is also significant because so many investors rely on it as a barometer for the economy. For years, Buffett has measured Berkshire's annual performance against the index in his letter to shareholders.
Being included would also generate new investment in Berkshire because trillions of dollars mirror moves in the index, and many funds buy stock in the companies in it.

A Standard & Poor's committee decides which companies to include in the S&P 500 based on a number of different criteria. Spokesman David Guarino declined to comment on the prospect of Berkshire joining the index, but he did explain the factors S&P considers.

Berkshire's market capitalization of $151 billion would easily exceed S&P's requirement that a company be worth at least $3.5 billion in the eyes of the stock market. But in the past, Berkshire has been left out of the index because its shares have been cumbersome to trade. S&P uses a formula comparing the dollar value of stock traded to a company's market capitalization to evaluate liquidity.

Buffett's charitable plans are another factor that will increase the number of Class B shares available to trade in the future. Buffett has pledged to convert all his Berkshire holdings to B shares and donate them to charity over time. Buffett pledged in 2006 to gradually give 10 million B shares to the Gates Foundation, 1 million B shares for the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation named in honor of his deceased first wife, and 350,000 shares for each of the three foundations run by his three children.

Morningstar analyst Bill Bergman said any company that gets added into the S&P 500 always sees a boost in its stock, but he thinks many investors have already factored that into Berkshire's shares. So becoming part of the S&P 500 may not mean much to Berkshire's share price.

"It's an interesting development, but as far as the value of the shares go, it doesn't mean much," Bergman said.

The Class B split was a key part of the BNSF deal when it was announced in December. Berkshire agreed to pay $100 per share in cash and stock for the 77.4 percent of BNSF shares that it didn't already own. The purchase will be the largest ever for Buffett's company.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Gasta Finance: Warren Buffet 10 top tips for Investment success.

Gasta Search Network Investment Advice

Warren Buffets 10 Tips For The Successful Long-Term Investor

While it may be true that in the stock market there is no rule without an exception, there are some principles that are tough to dispute. Let's review 10 general principles to help investors get a better grasp of how to approach the market from a long-term view. Every point embodies some fundamental concept every investor should know.

Sell the losers and let the winners ride!

Time and time again, investors take profits by selling their appreciated investments, but they hold onto stocks that have declined in the hope of a rebound. If an investor doesn't know when it's time to let go of hopeless stocks, he or she can, in the worst-case scenario, see the stock sink to the point where it is almost worthless. Of course, the idea of holding onto high-quality investments while selling the poor ones is great in theory, but hard to put into practice.

Don't chase a "hot tip"
Whether the tip comes from your brother, your cousin, your neighbor or even your broker, you shouldn't accept it as law. When you make an investment, it's important you know the reasons for doing so; do your own research and analysis of any company before you even consider investing your hard-earned money. Relying on a tidbit of information from someone else is not only an attempt at taking the easy way out, it's also a type of gambling. Sure, with some luck, tips sometimes pan out. But they will never make you an informed investor, which is what you need to be to be successful in the long run.

Don't sweat the small stuff

As a long-term investor, you shouldn't panic when your investments experience short-term movements. When tracking the activities of your investments, you should look at the big picture. Remember to be confident in the quality of your investments rather than nervous about the inevitable volatility of the short term. Also, don't overemphasize the few cents difference you might save from using a limit versus market order.

Granted, active traders will use these day-to-day and even minute-to-minute fluctuations as a way to make gains. But the gains of a long-term investor come from a completely different market movement - the one that occurs over many years - so keep your focus on developing your overall investment philosophy by educating yourself.

Don't overemphasize the P/E ratio
Investors often place too much importance on the price-earnings ratio (P/E ratio). Because it is one key tool among many, using only this ratio to make buy or sell decisions is dangerous and ill-advised. The P/E ratio must be interpreted within a context, and it should be used in conjunction with other analytical processes. So, a low P/E ratio doesn't necessarily mean a security is undervalued, nor does a high P/E ratio necessarily mean a company is overvalued.

Resist the lure of penny stocks
A common misconception is that there is less to lose in buying a low-priced stock. But whether you buy a $5 stock that plunges to $0 or a $75 stock that does the same, either way you've lost 100% of your initial investment. A lousy $5 company has just as much downside risk as a lousy $75 company. In fact, a penny stock is probably riskier than a company with a higher share price, which would have more regulations placed on it.

Pick a strategy and stick with it
Different people use different methods to pick stocks and fulfill investing goals. There are many ways to be successful and no one strategy is inherently better than any other. However, once you find your style, stick with it. An investor who flounders between different stock-picking strategies will probably experience the worst, rather than the best, of each. Constantly switching strategies effectively makes you a market timer, and this is definitely territory most investors should avoid. Take Warren Buffett's actions during the dotcom boom of the late '90s as an example. Buffett's value-oriented strategy had worked for him for decades, and - despite criticism from the media - it prevented him from getting sucked into tech startups that had no earnings and eventually crashed.

Focus on the future

The tough part about investing is that we are trying to make informed decisions based on things that are yet to happen. It's important to keep in mind that even though we use past data as an indication of things to come, it's what happens in the future that matters most.

A quote from Peter Lynch's book "One Up on Wall Street" (1990) about his experience with Subaru demonstrates this: "If I'd bothered to ask myself, 'How can this stock go any higher?' I would have never bought Subaru after it already went up twentyfold. But I checked the fundamentals, realized that Subaru was still cheap, bought the stock, and made sevenfold after that." The point is to base a decision on future potential rather than on what has already happened in the past.

Adopt a long-term perspective
Large short-term profits can often entice those who are new to the market. But adopting a long-term horizon and dismissing the "get in, get out and make a killing" mentality is a must for any investor. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to make money by actively trading in the short term. But, as we already mentioned, investing and trading are very different ways of making gains from the market. Trading involves very different risks that buy-and-hold investors don't experience. As such, active trading requires certain specialized skills.

Be open-minded

Many great companies are household names, but many good investments are not household names. Thousands of smaller companies have the potential to turn into the large blue chips of tomorrow. In fact, historically, small-caps have had greater returns than large-caps; over the decades from 1926-2001, small-cap stocks in the U.S. returned an average of 12.27% while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index (S&P 500) returned 10.53%.

This is not to suggest that you should devote your entire portfolio to small-cap stocks. Rather, understand that there are many great companies beyond those in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), and that by neglecting all these lesser-known companies, you could also be neglecting some of the biggest gains.

Be concerned about taxes, but don't worry
Putting taxes above all else is a dangerous strategy, as it can often cause investors to make poor, misguided decisions. Yes, tax implications are important, but they are a secondary concern. The primary goals in investing are to grow and secure your money. You should always attempt to minimize the amount of tax you pay and maximize your after-tax return, but the situations are rare where you'll want to put tax considerations above all else when making an investment decision.

Conclusion
There are exceptions to every rule, but we hope that these solid tips for long-term investors and the common-sense principles we've discussed benefit you overall and provide some insight into how you should think about investing.

The Millionaire's Mindset
When your grandparents lamented that a dollar just isn't a dollar anymore, they weren't just bellyaching. Inflation attacks the value of a dollar, reducing it as time goes by so you need more dollars as time goes on. That is one of the reasons that $1 million is often thrown around as a retirement goal. Back in 1900, a $1 million retirement would include a mansion and a bevy of servants, but now, it has become a benchmark for the average retirement portfolio. The upside is that it is easier to become a millionaire now than at any time before. While you won't be buying islands, it is still a goal worth shooting for. Read on for 10 ways to make your first million.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Gasta Tech News: Gasta optomistic about online ad spend increase in 2010

Gasta optomistic about online ad spend increase in 2010

The news inthe Online Marketing Industry is starting to look a bit more positive lately. The velocity at which ad spending declined over the last two years has gone from outright crash to crawl, with the expectation that we'll start seeing increases in late 2010 and into 2011. "The economic cycle has reached bottom -- at least for the online ad industry," said David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, "US Ad Spending." He notes that although the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers indicated that spending in the first three quarters of 2009 fell by 5.3 percent, eMarketer's estimates indicate a smaller loss of 2.5 percent during Q4.

If you live in pockets of the traditional advertising space, such as radio and print, the news will continue to be bleak for longer, with projected declines of greater than 4 percent in 2010 for newspapers and magazines. However, TV and outdoor are actually forecasted to increase slightly next year (approximately 2 percent), with internet leading the charge at a bump of 11.6 percent (source: ZenithOptimedia).

This particularly good news for those of us on the interactive side simply quantifies what many of us who live here day-in and day-out have experienced this year: continued growth. While most experts and researchers have announced that the trough is bottoming out, many of us have seen quite a bit of sunshine through the general advertising clouds. The overall picture is a $440 billion global industry, and internet advertising still represents less than 14 percent of that mark. We have a lot more room to grow.

What follows are a few signs that I witnessed in the latter part of 2009, from a small corner of the U.S. in San Diego, that might resonate with you and provide some optimism for recovery in 2010. I am sharing these as my own observations to open the dialog with others who might share what they've witnessed, positive or negative, as a digital imprint of what we were thinking as we enter into a new decade.

Clients are investing in social media
Brands are not just starting Twitter accounts and Facebook pages -- they're embracing social media as an influencing business practice. Most seem to understand that they need to listen to customers and react to what they're saying; among customer service gripes and viral contests, there is actually useful information. Companies are employing a variety of tactics within the social media construct to change the way they do business both internally and externally. What's more is that they're talking about it, therefore influencing others who will mirror effective social media strategies this year.

Shifting budgets rather than outright canning them
Discussions in the boardroom have gone from "what can we cut?" to "why are we spending on this ineffective tactic and not that effective one?" Earlier in the year, there were a lot of broad-stroke cuts made in budgets. We might hear, "All my budgets were cut 15 percent!"

Now that the dust has settled a bit, I have witnessed more productive discussions around moving money from areas that either weren't measurable or didn't produce to those that are effective in moving the needle. Next year, as we see more efficient use of budgets through Q1 and Q2, we hopefully can get some executives to spend more to get more in the latter part of the year.

Found money
Some clients "magically" found money left in their budgets at the end of 2009. No doubt clients were frugal throughout the year. But in December, they found some money to put into 2010 initiatives. For those clients, we should see some of that work come online quickly, which may encourage others to follow suit.

By Reid Carr

Gasta Tech News: Oxford University bans Spotify for Using too much bandwidth

Spotify which owes most of its online popularity in Ireland to Gasta.com and its music search engine http://www.audiojet.com has been banned by Oxford University.

TechCrunch reports
Oxford University has taken a fairly drastic measure against music spartup Spotify. It’s banned it.

The University’s computing services, OUCS, says the service is using too much bandwidth for their networks to handle. But no warning was given and students are understandably rather anoyed.

Finola Holyoak, a first-year student at Lincoln college says “I was shocked when I realised there was a total ban.”

Given that universities have traditionally been a hotbed of file-sharing (Napster was famously created when Sean Fanning was at college), one might think that Oxford University would want to promote a service that legally allows students to listen to a very large catalogue for free – rather than swapping eachother’s MP3 files.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Gasta tech blog: Twitter realtime search on Google

Google Reveals Factors for Ranking Tweets
Things You Should Know About Real-Time SEO
By Chris Crum
It's ok to say "no" to Twitter if that's your thing. There's a chance that it just doesn't fit into your strategy or help you achieve your goals. That's cool. However, if it is your thing, you may be interested in how Google ranks tweets. That is if search marketing is your thing.

Do you see Twitter as important to an effective search marketing campaign? Share your thoughts here.

Google and Microsoft almost simultaneously announced deals with Twitter a few months back, that would give the companies access to tweets in real-time to fuel their respective search engines' real-time results. Microsoft immediately launched their version, but it was separate from the regular Bing search engine. Google waited a while, but eventually started incorporating real-time results right into regular Google SERPs (including not only tweets, but various other sources).

After the Twitter deals were announced, Bing came out and said, "If someone has a lot of followers, his/her Tweet may get ranked higher. If a tweet is exactly the same as other Tweets, it will get ranked lower."

Amit Singhal Google was not as vocal about how it would rank tweets and other real-time results, but the company has now shed a bit of light on that via an interview with MIT's Technology Review. David Talbot interviewed Google "Fellow" Amit Singhal, who has led development of real-time search at the company. According to him, Google also ranks tweets by followers to an extent, but it's not just about how many followers you get. It's about how reputable those followers are.

Singhal likens the system to the well-known Google system of link popularity. Getting good links from reputable sources helps your content in Google, so having followers with that some kind of authority theoretically helps your tweets rank in Google's real-time search.

"One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation," Singhal says. "As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well."

But that's only one factor.

Do you commonly use hashtags in your tweets? If your goal is to rank in Google's real-time search index, you may want to cut down on that practice, because according to Singhal, that is a big red flag for a lower quality tweet. This seems to be part of Google's spam control strategy.

Another noteworthy excerpt from the interview:

Another problem: how, if someone is searching for "Obama," to sift through White House press tweets and thousands of others to find the most timely and topical information. Google scans tweets to find the "signal in the noise," he says. Such a "signal" might include a new onslaught of tweets and other blogs that mention "Cambridge police" or "Harry Reid" near mentions of "Obama." By looking out for such signals, Google is able to furnish real-time hits that contain the freshest subject matter even for very common search terms.

Well, we certainly know more about Google's strategy for tweet ranking now, but there are still plenty of questions about it. What is Google's stance is on Ghost Tweeting? Are Google's ranking factors a good reason to create and follow more Twitter lists in hopes for gaining more reputable industry followers?

The factors mentioned aren't the only ones Google employs. It's not like Google is going to tell us everything. It also helps to keep in mind that real-time search spans far beyond just tweets. Still, Twitter is clearly a big part of it, and even the significance of tweets themselves will evolve in time.

Google says it hopes to factor in geo-location data (with regards to tweets) into the real-time search results at some point. Google and Twitter engineers frequently collaborate on real-time search, which Google itself says is evolving.

By the way, it stands to reason that Google's strategy for ranking tweets probably shares similarities for how it ranks content from other sources drawn from for real-time search.

Online Marketing with Gasta Belfast and SurfNI.com

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Gasta search network ad listings

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Gasta Tech Update : Performance Marketing Industry

Friday, April 02, 2010

Gasta Money: Warren Buffet’s unsolicited

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Gasta Update: The PR Insider

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Gasta Tech Newsletter : AdMob Latest

Friday, February 26, 2010

Gasta Tech: Hitwise news

Friday, February 19, 2010

Warren Buffet on Consumer "Fads" That Haven't Faded

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Gasta.com SEO marketing Update:

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Gasta.com stock tips

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Gasta Investment news: Ivestopedia Trade

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Gasta Tech Update: Facebook Adds 5 Million Users in January

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Gasta.com tech news: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Gasta Finance: Warren Buffet 10 top tips for Investment success.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Gasta Tech News: Gasta optomistic about online ad spend increase in 2010

Gasta Tech News: Oxford University bans Spotify for Using too much bandwidth

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Gasta tech blog: Twitter realtime search on Google

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