Branding is hardly an obscure concept; if you don’t know what branding is, ask any high school kid with an Internet page. The largest companies in the United States clearly believe in the value of branding. Usually when Coke runs a commercial, for example, the goal is branding, rather than immediate and direct sales. Bank of America is also big on branding – almost every advertisement that company runs is designed to make you feel more familiar and more comfortable with the Bank of America brand. When you see a company’s advertisement focusing in intangibles, it’s a good bet that company is trying to build up its brand.

Think about it. You’re driving across I-10 on your way to Florida, and you stop for food at one of those exits made for travelers. There’s a McDonalds and a Denny’s restaurant, and also a third diner named “Abbie’s Place.” If you said “Abbie’s” then congratulations on your adventurousness, but you’re also in the minority. The vast majority of interstate travelers are going to pick McDonalds or Denny’s simply because they are familiar with those brands – and believe that they know what to expect. The branded restaurants could be run by managers who don’t ask their employees to wash up before work, or after using the bathroom, where Abbie’s could be run by the cleanest people in America – but when the traveler makes that split-second decision on where to eat, “Abbie’s” will seem like the biggest risk.

Online, smaller companies tend to focus on sales or conversions – branding seems like a luxury. This, I think, is a mistake. The delivery mechanism for branding campaigns doesn’t matter – television, magazines, the Internet – regardless of your platform, branding is important. If your website converts 1 sale from every 500 visitors, does that mean 499 out of 500 are worthless? Hardly.

It may take a while for the more timid online consumers to grow comfortable with your brand. Face it, the Internet is full of scam artists. We’re reminded of that every day when we open our inbox and get the latest phishing scams or clever attempts to infect our machines with a tojan. When a consumer first encounters your brand, he or she will probably have a trust deficit – and rightly so. If you can’t close a sale on first contact, then it’s your job to at least help those consumers grow more comfortable with your brand in order to close that sale some other day.

We know branding, in that general sense, works. If it didn’t work, why do we routinely pick Coke and Pepsi over other colas? Why would anyone drink Budweiser beer? Why did Microsoft feel compelled to answer Apple’s “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads with an “I’m a PC” campaign of their own? The problem isn’t whether branding works, the problem is how do you measure the success of your branding efforts.

This can be especially problematic when you market online, and in many ways branding is an exercise in faith. That doesn’t mean though that you can completely ignore any measurements from your branding efforts. Don’t despair, there are some effective methods that you can use when trying to get a feel for the success of your branding campaigns.

Page views per visit. Take a close look at your traffic and try to get a feel for how many pages your website’s visitors are viewing per session. If you have a one-page website, this is irrelevant of course, but for most websites a larger number of average page views means the audience is interested. If you have engaged your audience, there’s a much better chance that your branding efforts are having an impact.

Average time spent on site. One visitor arrives on your site and loads four pages, while another visitor only loads three. The second visitor, however, spent ten minutes on your website where the first only spent two minutes. Which visit was more valuable? Likely the answer is the second – assuming he wasn’t just pausing to answer the phone or go to the bathroom between page loads. If you are buying traffic from two different sources, one way to measure the quality of that traffic is by how long visitors from each source spend on your website. If source A sends visitors that spend an average of 4 minutes on your site, while visitors from source B spend only 2 minutes on average, then source A is probably sending you traffic that’s a better match for your website – and the longer people spend looking through your site, the better for your branding efforts.

Return visitors. How many times does a person come back to your website over a certain period of time? The more a visitor interacts with your brand, the more familiar she or he will become with your brand. If visitors are returning, there’s a good chance something caught their attention, and you’ll have multiple opportunities to build brand confidence with those repeat viewers.

Ultimately, every branding campaign needs to result in revenue. If you’ve been branding your website for many months but haven’t seen any increase in traffic or conversions that might be attributable to better brand awareness, then something is wrong. That doesn’t mean you should abandon branding. If you know you have a solid product but you choose to reject branding, your long-term business prospects aren’t very bright. If your branding campaigns aren’t yielding results after a reasonable period of time, at least six months of consistent branding, then it might be time to ask why that’s the case – perhaps it’s a problem with the product or the presentation – and start making some changes.

Note: If you don’t have a more powerful analytics solution, you can always use Google Analytics for free. Just note that Google Analytics tends to under-report traffic. It should still give you a good idea of the behavior of your visitors, but keep in mind the real number of visitors is probably higher than what Google Analytics is reporting.

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The operating system that Apple named “Tiger” was introduced in 2004, and many felt it was the finest to date produced by the California-based technology company. Its main competition was, of course, the powerhouse up in Redmond, Washington – a company that went by the name of Microsoft. While announcing Tiger at a technology conference, Apple had commissioned banners that hung from the walls and gleefully poked at the giant to the north; the banners read, “Redmond, start your photocopiers.”

That of course was a jab at Microsoft, who Apple (along with countless other software companies) had accused before of stealing its innovations. Apple had previously sued Microsoft over the initial Windows operating system, which Apple felt was far too close to the Macintosh approach to be ignored; defenders of Microsoft pointed out that Apple’s own hands were not clean, having “borrowed” the whole idea for the original Mac OS from Xerox.

No matter where Apple got the idea for the original Mas OS, there’s no denying that Apple has succeeded in launching revolutionary new technology products again and again: it created the personal computer, revolutionized the market a second time with the release of the Macintosh, dominated digital music with iTunes and the iPod, and now has launched a “smartphone” revolution in the United States with its iPhone. Most of Microsoft’s success has come from leveraging its position of power as the leading OS maker to sell its own versions of products that already existed. Microsoft seems less interested in innovation, and more interested in adapting and dominating.

The movie Pirates of Silicon Valley was released in 1999 before Apple had risen from the ashes of its historic fall at the hands of a more aggressive and better positioned Microsoft. In a memorable scene from the film, volatile Apple CEO Steve Jobs unloads in an encounter with Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates. Gates admits that there maybe be “a few similarities” between his new Windows OS and the Macintosh OS. “Similarities,” Jobs replies, “Try theft.”

Since the rise of the Internet, however, innovation has taken on a new form of prominence with technology companies. Some companies who have embraced innovation have seen wild success; Google decimated a number of far less sophisticated early players in Internet search, Facebook smashed a less aggressive MySpace, and of course Apple found its groove again with the iMac and, later, the iPod.

“Microsoft’s business model was based around waiting for others to innovate, then making cheap knockoffs of what others were selling,” wrote columnist Daniel Lyons recently for Newsweek. “Microsoft copied Apple to make Windows. They copied Lotus and WordPerfect to make Excel and Word, then bundled those apps into a low-cost suite called Office. They copied Netscape Navigator to make Internet Explorer, and then gave it away free, tied to Windows, and killed Netscape. But then the copycat model stopped working.”

Why did it stop working? Lyons says, and I agree, it was the rise of the Internet that threatened Redmond. Microsoft suddenly seemed unable to buy or muscle its way to the top with failed music projects and a disastrous Windows Vista. The rise of Open Source software also made its mark, since developers from around the globe now found it a lot easier to collaborate on projects like Open Office, Firefox and countless others. Fighting wars on a number of fronts, Microsoft found itself in a dire position; it was not irrelevant by any means, with more than 90% of the market share for personal computers, but was in danger of heading down that path if it didn’t start to make the right moves.

“Before the Internet came along, Microsoft ruled the computer industry,” Lyons wrote. “Tiny software companies lived in Microsoft’s shadow, and they knew that if their business struck gold, Microsoft would offer them an unpleasant choice: either sell your company to us for a pittance, or we’ll create software that mimics your product and put you out of business. Microsoft bullied rivals and business partners alike, until the latter squealed to the U.S. Department of Justice, which brought an antitrust case against the software giant, resulting in a judgment against Microsoft in 2002. These days nobody fears Microsoft. The company has become a stumbling, bumbling joke.”

Enter the Windows 7 operating system. The hype surrounding the release of this OS has been deafening, with Microsoft all but pleading with consumers that it has learned its lesson and reformed. But there are no really good signs yet that the hype has penetrated through to those consumers who aren’t rabid technology fans. In fact, any way you look at it the Mac’s market share has only increased slightly since the release of Windows 7, although it’s far too early to have a really good sense of what the OS will mean to Microsoft.

As the marketing battle heats up between the two archrivals, the real question might be if Microsoft has changed its approach to development, learned the lesson of a new Internet age, or if it’s still the same old company that lets others do the hard work.

Incredibly, Microsoft partner group manager Simon Aldous had this candid comment when talking about his company’s latest OS that might shed some insight into that question: “What we’ve tried to do with Windows 7 – whether it’s traditional format or in a touch format – is to create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics.”

Others at Microsoft have since rushed to repair the damage, denying the validity of Aldous’s comments and insisting that he was flat wrong. But the comments have already served like a shot of euphoria to loyal Apple fans everywhere who have hopped up and down and pointed with glee at their latest smoking gun.

In the final climax of Pirates of Silicon Valley, Jobs and Gates square off in a private fictional encounter. After a heated exchange, Gates turns to leave and Jobs calls after him, “We’re better than you are. We have better stuff.” Gates stops and slowly turns to deliver the films final word on innovation in business. “You don’t get it Steve,” he says calmly. “That doesn’t matter.”

Time will tell if the fictional Gates was right.

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You’re probably familiar with Wikipedia.org, the free online information depository that seems to be at the beginning and end of congressional research efforts these days. What you might not know, however, is that a “wiki” in Internet terms is nothing more than a website or section of a website where multiple people can contribute content. The word was borrowed from the Hawaiian word wikiwiki, which means “quick.” You can verify that fact on Wikipedia!

Most of the wiki sites you know are probably public websites, but there’s nothing stopping you from setting up your own private wiki as a convenient depository of information that relates to the operation of your online company or business. Keeping specific company information in one secure location is convenient and extremely useful.

This works especially well when you have a company with more than one employee at remote locations. Setting up a “company wiki” gives you a place online to deposit important information for employees, such as links to tax forms, codes of conduct, or legal notices about employee rights. You can also use it to store general company information that other employees might need to access, such as your company’s tax-ID number, company fax lines, mailing address, staff contact information, or listings of all company websites and their admin areas.

A private wiki is especially useful though for documenting company procedures.

Consider that each job at your company should be clearly defined, and a company wiki is an excellent place to store job descriptions. Let’s say your company employs a ‘Website Content Manager’ whose job includes verifying the accuracy of information offered on your website. This employee no doubt has a set of procedures that he or she needs to follow while carrying out assigned tasks. Perhaps your website includes a listing of software vendors, and this employee needs to monitor entries on that list on a regular basis to verify they are still valid. That means checking links, verifying descriptions, and when appropriate, logging into an admin area to delete outdated links or change information. This entire process can be documented on your company wiki, making it that much easier to get the next employee up to speed and productive should your current employee leave for greener pastures.

If you employ a system administrator, you have to be concerned about that person being the sole source of knowledge about how to get things done on your servers. If your system administrator leaves for another company, will you know how to train his or her replacement? Will you know where files are kept on your server? Do you know about any custom software that has been installed to administer your websites? Asking your system administrator to document how to accomplish basic admin tasks is a really good idea, and your next administrator will thank you if your wiki is loaded with information about your specific setup.

Now for some really good news.

Setting up a company wiki is free, and the same software that powers Wikipedia.org is open source. You can download it at MediaWiki.org, and assuming your server meets some basic requirements, you can have it installed and running in almost no time.

Spend some time thinking about security, however. You’ll want to make sure your wiki is password-protected, and that employees access it via a secure connection so that usernames and passwords can’t be intercepted. Since no system in 100% secure (an employee might be careless with his account information, for example), you might want to refrain from putting extremely sensitive information on your company wiki, just in case.

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If you plan to spend time marketing yourself, your company, your products or your services through social networking sites, there are really only a couple that are worth your time. The giant in the room, of course, is Facebook – which by most estimates is now the second most-visited website on the Internet, behind Google of course.

If you’re going to spend time on Facebook though, then you probably should get familiar with the “Groups” application, which is a simple way to stay connected with people who share a common interest.

For those of you who are already familiar with the Groups application, you can skip this tutorial since it covers only the basics.

Facebook: Applications Menu

For the rest of you, we’ll need a common frame of reference for this discussion, so let’s assume for the sake of argument that your goal is to promote your book review website. You have two choices when planning a group on Facebook for business purposes: you can target potential customers directly, or you use Facebook to network with other professionals who themselves might have access to potential customers. In our scenario, we’ll assume the targets will be other businesses because I’m a big believer in the benefits of B2B networking.

So the group we’re going to make then is a professional group, and the people you want to attract would be other individuals who run websites, since they might make good partners for traffic trades or other forms of cross promotion. You could always make a general group like “Website Developers,” but you probably need to narrow your focus down somewhat for starters. If you live in Texas, for example, you might start a group called “Texas Internet Developers.” If you’d rather be even more specific, go for “Houston Website Developers.”

Groups technically aren’t built-in to Facebook; strictly speaking, they’re a Facebook application. The chances of that making any difference to you though are slim. What that does mean, however, is when you start a group you’ll need to access the Groups application from the Applications menu, which at the time of this article is located in the bottom left corner of your Facebook screen.

Once you have selected Groups, the first thing you should do is search for groups similar to the one you plan to create. If there is an existing group that fits what you’re planning to create, you can always choose to just join that group instead of starting from scratch. If you’d rather be at the wheel, knowing what similar groups exist already can help you with naming your group so that it at least sounds different – and if there are too many similar groups, you can always change your focus.

After you have scanned what already exists, click on the link to “Create a New Group” and fill in the form that follows.

Facebook: Create New Group

Group Name. If you want people with like interests to find your group, use a descriptive name. And since the group in our scenario is supposed to be a professional group, keep the name professional too. Only teenagers really appreciate absurd group names, and teenage antics aren’t in short supply on the Internet, so put on a professional face and take networking seriously.

Description. This is your chance to get some good keywords into your group to help people find your group in the first place, but your group description should also sound professional and be descriptive. If you simply stuff keywords, other people won’t take your group seriously.

Group Type. Here you get to place your group into a category, two levels deep. In our example we’d probably select “Internet & Technology” for the first category, and “Websites” for the second.

Email: Add in your email address here, so you can get proper notifications of select group-related events.

You can ignore fields like “recent news” or “address” for now, those aren’t vital to the operation of a Facebook group.

When you’re done, click on the “Create Group” button. Now you’ll need to do a little group administration and customize the settings for your new group.

Facebook: Customize Group

In addition to having the option of determining whether group members can post comments on the wall, share pictures or videos, or post links, you also get to decide the “Access” settings for your group. All three choices are clearly explained on Facebook, just keep in mind the real questions here are: 1) “Do I want anyone to be able to join my group?” and 2) “Do I want anyone to be able to find my group?”

In our scenario, we probably want the group to be findable by anyone on Facebook, but we might want to restrict who can join the group since it’s supposed to be focused on Web developers in Texas. You can select “This group is open” if you don’t want to verify new members, or “This group is closed” if you’d rather approve new members before they can participate in the group.

Once your settings are complete, you’ll be prompted to send out invitations to people you can select from your Friends list; alternatively, you can enter a list of email addresses. If you don’t know anyone yet who would be a good match for your group, you’re going to have to do some work. Join other open groups that might include potential members for your own group, and start making new friends.

You also want to make sure your new group has some content of interest so new members have a reason to stick around after they join. Post pictures if relevant, start discussions, post links of interest, and when you get enough members you can even consider planning a local event for group members in your area.

Facebook’s Groups application can be an effective tool for networking with other professionals, and it never hurts to have friends in business. Just remember that marketing with Facebook takes work, and like anything else in modern Internet marketing, if you don’t stay at it consistently then it won’t be of much help to your business.

Remember: At the end of the day, Groups is a software tool; it’s up to you to use that tool to supply interesting content that attracts attention and solicits participation.

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After blocking a Microsoft browser add-on and associated plug-in last Friday due to a documented security vulnerability, Mozilla today unblocked the add-ons for Firefox and said the plug-in will be restored in a matter of days.

Microsoft reported last week that two of its add-ons, .NET Framework Assistant and Windows Presentation Foundation, contained security flaws that made their users vulnerable to attack. The company had issued a patch for the software, but Mozilla decided it wasn’t enough to protect users of its Firefox browser because Microsoft had been installing the software without the permission of users.

Making matters worse, uninstalling the add-on was extremely difficult and until recently required users to edit the Windows registry.

“Because of the difficulties some users have had entirely removing the add-on, and because of the severity of the risk it represents if not disabled, we contacted Microsoft today to indicate that we were looking to disable the extension and plug-in for all users via our blocklisting mechanism,” said Mozilla’s Mike Shaver last Friday.

According to reports, the vulnerability in the Microsoft add-ons could be used by hackers to hijack Windows-based computers. At risk were users of Firefox, as well as users of all versions of Internet Explorer. Although Microsoft issued an announcement that a security patch it released last week would protect users of Internet Explorer, the company hadn’t mentioned Firefox. When Mozilla blocked the two add-ons late Friday, it was only the ninth time the company has used its blocking tool since it was released in 2007.

“This was an unusual case of using the blocker,” Shaver said. “Version information was not available to us at first, and since [the add-ons were] installed by many users, many of them were unaware they even had it, and the add-on and plug-in were difficult to uninstall, we thought it best to block them, at least for a time. Microsoft agreed.”

Blocking the .NET Framework Assistant add-on proved to be a headache for users who relied on it to power certain software run through their browsers. Although it has now been taken off the block list, the associated Windows Presentation Foundation plug-in is still blocked for the time being.

According to Shaver, Mozilla is working on an improvement to its user notification system that will automatically deactivate any plug-ins that are installed by third party software. Users will then be notified of the plug-in and given the option of activating it.

“We’re big believers in informed user choice,” said Shaver. “So we’re going to improve notifications to users when plug-ins are installed. We do that with add-ons in Firefox now, which checks for those added since the last time you ran the browser. We will do the same thing for plug-ins, likely in Firefox 3.7.”

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The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) is opposing new rules proposed by the FTC that would force bloggers to disclose their associations.

IAB president and CEO Randall Rothenberg wrote:

“What concerns us the most in these revisions is that the Internet, the cheapest, most widely accessible communications medium ever invented, would have less freedom than other media … These revisions are punitive to the online world and unfairly distinguish between the same speech, based on the medium in which it is delivered. The practices have long been afforded strong First Amendment protections in traditional media outlets, but the Commission is saying that the same speech deserves fewer Constitutional protections online.”

Here’s what the FTC had to say about the reason behind their proposed rules:

“The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that ‘material connections’ (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers–connections that consumers would not expect–must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other ‘word-of-mouth’ marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.”

More here….

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Well now, Microsoft is looking to stop the bleeding from the broken glass all over the floor from where Windows Vista shattered. Their solution is Windows 7, the new version of their always flawed operating system that, according to the hype (hype they almost certainly manufactured themselves), is supposed to finally halt the Mac’s recent surge in market share.

Only problem is… this is still a Microsoft operating system, even if the company is someone less powerful than it was ten years ago.

Upgrading a PC to a new version of Windows is always so painful, even David Coursey from PC World is saying you might as well just buy a whole new machine.

“Windows 7’s biggest failing is that upgrading from XP upgrade requires reinstalling applications and moving personal data around. And who looks forward to doing that?”

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/173792/windows_7_dont_upgrade_buy_a_new_pc.html

If you hear a dripping sound, that’s just the collective drool of the hardware and software vendors who are fully expecting you to keep that wallet out long after you purchase Windows 7.

When Vista was released, I did the “purchase a new PC” thing too… and you know what? It was STILL a nightmare. Peripherals didn’t work, and searches for updated drivers often yielded results like “we’re working on it.” And suddenly, half my software wasn’t working correctly. I had a version of Dreamweaver that was about 2 years old at the time, and of course couldn’t find my registration key. So when I called Adobe to retrieve it, they told me that the version of Dreamweaver that I was using wasn’t compatible with Vista, and recommended I spend another couple hundred upgrading it.

Looking back, I seriously doubt the “advice” that Adobe rep gave me was sound. But after wondering if I’d be having similar problems with Photoshop, Premiere, Acrobat, etc., my final solution was to chuck that new PC into a closet and spend the money on an iMac instead.

I’m still using that same iMac today, and haven’t even considered a need to upgrade it. To be sure, Macs aren’t the ideal platform for gaming. But when it comes to keeping work days productive and minimizing the “scream at your computer” moments, it has been a godsend. There have been a few bumps in the road, but I’m spending so much less time running down undesirable computer behavior — plus, the OS doesn’t get in the way of productivity.

Things just work nicer with my Mac than they ever did with Windows… whether that be Windows 95, 98, ME, XP, or especially Vista. I hardly ever reboot now. So you’ll have to pardon me if I don’t jump on the Windows 7 bandwagon. It’s certainly possible that the financial kick in the butt that Microsoft got from their “just ship it” decision on Vista was just what that company needed to finally get it right, but I’m not holding my breath.

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No doubt Senator Al Franken is aware that he would become the instant target of a political firestorm if he were to attempt to champion controversial progressive causes in his first year as a United States Senator. After all, his opponents have warned that his election was a sign of the apocalypse, all but promising the end of the world if Franken were to take office in Minnesota. I guess they weren’t fans of his books.

I figure that probably explains why his first amendment was something you’d think would be rather non-controversial. I’m sure he wants to establish himself as a reasonable politician.

Some back story: A female employee for Halliburton, who was serving in Iraq at the time, was allegedly gang-raped by her co-workers then locked in a storage container for 24 hours so she couldn’t report the rape. She also says she was told she’d lose her job if she reported it. When she arrived in the US, she was then told that she couldn’t sue her employers because of a clause in her contract that waived the right to sue in court. Her only option was private arbitration, which heavily favors big corporations.

So, Franken’s amendment was simple: Deny federal funding to defense contractors who require employees to waive their right to a trial in court the event of rape.

The story does have a happy ending because the Amendment passed, but remarkably 30 Republican senators still found a reason to vote against the amendment. Suddenly the same senators who led the firestorm against federal funding of ACORN now felt it wasn’t the government’s job to demand ethical behavior from the companies that accept taxpayer dollars. Not even in the case of gang rape.

I’m sad to say that one of my own senators, John Cornyn of Texas, sided with big business and against rape victims. I’d say he should be ashamed, but if he made this vote I seriously doubt he has one ounce of shame in his body.

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