YouTube Killed the Video Star

The Decline of MTV and Television
by James Fowler
www.mywebsource1.com

As all of us that were kids in the 80’s remember the relevant song by the Boggles that started off MTV in the 1980’s, it appears that MTV is now being “killed” by the internet. YouTube and others web sites like it are causing the music giant to shift its’ tune as Viacom Inc., MTV’s owner announced 250 layoffs yesterday in an effort to refocus the company towards a more digital platform.

"These moves are necessary to best align us for the future", MTV Networks Chief Executive Judy McGrath said in a memo.

They are not alone. In October, NBC Universal announced that it was cutting 700 jobs, Time Warner Inc. eliminated 6,000 positions over the past year, and Walt Disney Co. said in July that it was cutting 650.

So why is this?

Technology is changing and big media needs to wise up if it plans to hold sway over the American public as it once did. We expect things now. We don’t want to wait until Thursday night to see the new episode of our favorite show. It is already filmed, why aren’t we seeing it? Devices such as ‘Tivo’ and ‘HBO on Demand’ are the just the start of a revolution in popular media.

At the World Economic Forum this year, Bill Gates talked about the future of television and how Web 2.0 is re-shaping our environment. "Once video gets on the Internet, the ability to just see the news you want, the ads are personalized, the educational stuff is far more interactive; it becomes very different than it has been in broadcast," Gates said. "I'm stunned how people aren't seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we've had."

Bill Gates is referring to a change in everything that we now see as normal. You come home, you turn on the ‘tube’ and you watch what “they” have planned for us. If you don’t like it, you change the channel to something else that is planned out. In the television of the future, you’ll decide upon what you want to watch and when. Commercials will not be purchased as they are now. They will be shown based on your specific needs and inquiries. “Google AdWords” for television based on keywords and phrases? Is it that far-stretched of an idea? We are already being advertised to with every click of a mouse on our computers. Why not television, as well? How long before it takes over Digital Radio?

MTV hit the air waves on August 1, 1981. To my generation it was a revolution. No longer did you have to wait and see music videos for an hour on Saturday night after the news (Solid Gold, for those of you who don’t remember). A new revolution is coming and if MTV or television, in general, doesn’t get with it, they will become obsolete.

The Future of Media Entertainment

We’re through with watching television when we are told to watch what is on. The media giants are history. In the future, you are going to go to your television when you are ready. You will never again hear the words, “I can’t believe we have all these channels and there is nothing to watch.” You will sit down and tell your TV what you are watching. If you want to watch that episode of Friends when Ross finally kisses Rachel, just ask for it. Your TV will be hooked into one giant database of programming. Commercials will still be there, but they will be tailored to what you shop. You will be able to tag programming to suit your needs.

Now with all of these changes, will this be the end of television? In media, new technologies typically do not completely make the old technology obsolete. The DVD didn’t replace the movie theater, television and radio still exist. What happens is the older technology needs to adapt and grow. This will be the case with television as we know it. They will need to change to their environment.

MTV seems to be making the right choice by moving their focus to include a new online format. By focusing on this type of future, their chances of survival shouldn’t be as bleak as the Boggles prophesized for radio.

The Three Keys to Marketing a Business Web Site

The Three Keys to Marketing a Business Web Site

by James Fowler
www.mywebsource1.com

Have you been thinking about building (or re-building) a business web site? Maybe you are considering using a web site as your primary source of income or you want to expand to different revenue flows from your brick and mortar business. In any instance, there are some things to keep in mind if you are going to build a successful business site.

What is the objective of your web site?
Who will be the target audience who will be purchasing your products?
How are you positioning yourself differently from your competition?

There are plenty of people on the internet that have started web sites without answering these three questions. They spend thousands of dollars on mismanaged ideas, poor web site design, and changing their goals midstream. The goals changed so many times that nothing was accomplished until finally, their money ran out.

So how do you avoid this same thing happening to you? How do you make sure that your web site is going to succeed and carry out the plans until it becomes a success? The answer is to plan, learn and know what you are going to do before rushing into a disaster.

1. What is the objective of your web site?

On the surface, there really are only two objectives of any web site: To inform or to sell. If you are not doing one of these two things, you are wasting your time. Really, if you aren’t creating a web site to show the world how cute of a puppy you have, then there is only one goal you should focus on and that is to sell. This doesn’t mean that you have to have an eCommerce site, but you have to create something that brings in an income. Creating an income can take the form of: Generating leads, building brand awareness, increasing the amount of call volume, receiving and acting upon feedback, or attracting people into your network.

2. Who will be the target audience who will be purchasing your products?

How many businesses don’t even know who their customer is or what they want? I have heard time and time again the number of businesses going online who think that their customer is “everyone” or “6.5 billion people”. They could not be more wrong. Understand the needs and wants of your customer. Not everyone will want your product and you need to focus on those that will buy from you. Before you can sell anything on the web, you need to understand who your customer will be and what questions and fears they will have from shopping online. You need to study what your competition does right and what they do wrong. Know where your customer shops and target those areas. The most important reason to know your target audience is to reach out to them in a way that will make them reach into their wallets.

3. How are you positioning yourself differently from your competition?

Positioning is something that was identified by Al Reis and Jack Trout in their book by the same name. What positioning does is differentiates you from your competition. It is the way your customer will view you and how successful you will become. Typically, only two people make money in any category. There may be others, but usually only two shine through and make it big. If you don’t believe me, name ten cola companies. Coke and Pepsi are the two big ones and you probably named them in that order. Why? Because they have ‘positioned’ in such a way that all the other competition is negligent. So what do you do to make yourself shine? You portray yourself as someone else. You become the ‘someone’ who offers something different and unique. Do what 7-Up did – they became the ‘Un-Cola’. You don’t want to sit back and let the market define who you are. Be proactive and tell them who you are.

When planning out your web site the only way to ensure success is to prepare, strategize, and move forward knowing why, to whom, and how you will succeed.

If you find this article beneficial or would like to learn more, feel free to contact me at my email: mywebsource1@gmail.com or by visiting my web site: www.mywebsource1.com .

Google to Personalize Search Results

by James Fowler
www.mywebsource1.com

To go along with my previous theme on Web 2.0, this past weekend, Google introduced something else to help make your internet a better experience – personalized search results. Like its' predecessor, the Google home page (www.google.com/ig) , which was launched two years ago and allows for you to create your workspace – free of ads –this personalized search result allows for members to find what they want on the internet much easier. If you are not a member of Google, you can apply for an account at www.Gmail.com.


A Google account allows you access to Gmail – a free email service with two gigabytes of storage, the Google Toolbar, bookmarking capabilities, and the use of AdWords. Now, you will be able to search and find results based on your previous history.

How will this affect Search Engine Optimization? Does this throw the algorithm and all of your efforts to reach a top ranking out the window?

The answer is no. The new method of search result method will make some slight changes in the favor of the web user's personal preferences, but your page rank and spot should not be affected anymore than it is currently.

According to Google, "Personalized search is part of Google's ongoing effort to make your search experience more relevant to you. Using Personalized Search, you can:

1. Get the results most relevant to you, based on what you've searched for in the past.
2. View and manage your past searches, including the web pages, images, news headlines and Froogle results you've clicked on.
3. Create bookmarks you can access from any computer.

Personalized Search orders your search results based on your past searches, as well as the search results and news headlines you've clicked on. You can view all these items in your Search History and remove any items you'd like.

Early on, you may not notice a huge impact on your search results, but as you build up your search history, your personalized search results will continue to improve.

Is this another step towards Orwell's concepts of Big Brother?

The personalized search is now a default, but there are ways to disable this function. Also, it isn't customizing the browser towards everything that you do. The information is being gleaned through the Search History, Bookmarks, and Personalized home pages (as shown in the link above). Images, Froogle, Google Earth, Video, and the News will not be included in the information.

Google is pretty sneaky about the whole thing, though. Just logging into your account enables the function to work. If you are worried about your privacy being invaded, you can log into your account settings and clicking off the box that says "Enable Search History".

While these changes will take some time to take effect, Web 2.0 is revolutionizing the way Search Optimization will be done. Site rank and page results now become a moot point. This trend started with regionalization and has now come full circle. The key to making your site "rank well" will be to have all of your pages rank equally well. No longer will the "home page" suffice.

There are several methods to overcome these issues. Social bookmarking through sites such as Squidoo.com and del.icio.us are already ahead of the game. The key is to write quality information and keep site retention. Creating a site that "makes sense" in regards to navigation and usability will bring and retain more viewers. Including RSS feeds and prompts to "bookmark this page" to Google will also aid in your search engine status. Gentle persuasion now becomes a major asset in your web site ranking.

In conclusion, this does not mean an end how Google ranks pages. Spiders will still search web pages like they normally do, but with the added benefit of knowing what you want to view. Personalization will cut down on spam pages and make the user experience more productive over the course of its use. While privacy is a concern, this is just another step towards making the web a truly interactive medium.

If you have any concerns or questions about Google Personalization, feel free to email me at my email address: mywebsource1@gmail.com.

What the heck is Web 2.0 and what do I do with it?

by James Fowler
www.mywebsource1.com

What is the deal with Web 2.0? If you have heard about it, you are in the minority. According to Entrepreneur Magazine (Feb. 2007), 79% of all marketers are unfamiliar with the term, while only 33% of them are using it to their advantage. This means if you took 100 marketers, only 21 even know what the term means and only 7 know what to do with it!

But what is Web 2.0?

It is an interactive way for people to target, communicate, and collaborate. With Web 2.0, you no longer tell people, you share with them and receive their feedback. They, in turn, can share with the world about you. The whole world is moving towards this whether they know it or not. If you are reading this, you are using Web 2.0. This is a blog and it is a form of 2.0.

Everything is going 2.0. The way you access the internet, your email, even programs you use on a daily basis have all been transformed over to this new way riding the ethereal superhighway. I will give you some examples. Maybe you have heard of them.

Blog: You can put up a web page (because that is what it is) on a service like mySpace, Blogger, Xanga, or Wordpad. You can post your thoughts and people can respond to you. Find someone you like to talk to, make them one of your friends. Share pictures, videos, and audio. People write back to you and comment on what you say.

Wiki: Create a dialogue about your products and the info. People comment on the products and services, giving their thoughts and editing them in real time.

Video: Heard of YouTube? It is a format for you to upload videos from your web cam, video camera, or cell phone. People vote on the video, make comments, and create keywords for other to find it. Does this sound frivolous? Where else can you produce a commercial for nothing, run the commercial, see if it is successful and if not, change it and run it again?

Audio: Podcasts (and their video counterpart Vodcasts) are making the internet airwaves free. Businesses can now create an audio file from a microphone purchased from Radio Shack and you are set up to produce your own thirty minute infomercial or talk show.

Syndication: RSS feeds – or Really Simple Syndication – allows for you to take your blog and broadcast it all over the world with the click of a button. That's one big soapbox!

Word Processing: What? You mean like Microsoft Word or Excel? Yup. I mean like Google Docs and Spreadsheets (http://docs.google.com). It is a free service you can use with their free email service, Gmail. Do everything you can do in with the other programs, keep a document history (no need for 25 renditions saved to your desktop), work with another person online and then publish the final work to your web site or blog.

There are other ways to promote your web pages. Free services like del.icio.us (that's the web site name) allow you to take a web page, tag it by taking your keywords and then broadcasting the page like you would do with a blog.

Need a way of putting your whole site out there? Why not create a free portal (called a lens) at Squidoo.com. This helps people create a hand-built catalog of what they want online and then share it with others. One lens links in with a blog, a feed, a photo, an auction, and it all is under the umbrella of the topic you choose. Broadcast it and let other people find out info from you. This is relatively new, but it is the wave of the future. A lens stops the need for you to type in a topic and find 100 million irrelevant web pages before finding the one you need.

The Future of Web 2.0

As you can see, there are a lot of opportunities for a business to take advantage of Web 2.0. This is the time for you to use 2.0 to your advantage. For the most part, early in the game, these methods are free or cost very little to implement. There is no question that they will have a serious impact on how we do business in the future. The evolution of 2.0 has begun. You can't afford to get left in its' wake.