Screencast of my Favorite Websites

This Screencast is a short introduction to some of my favorite small business marketing must-have website services. I hope you find them as useful as I have. If you are interested in learning more about them, Googleing their names should be relatively easy.

Which Programs do you Use?

Currently, social media networking sites are soaring in popularity. However, there are so many that businesses usually do not know which ones will provide the most visibility or even will be the most effective for promoting their company online. The following spreadsheet acts like a poll so that our readers can gain a better understanding of which programs are most popular. Add to the quantity the programs you have used in the last 12 months.

Web 2.0 and Beyond

Web 2.0 and Beyond- Understanding the New Online Business Models, Trends, and technologies by Tom Funk is an incredible book that provides an easy to read, concise, and clear alternative to other web 2.0 books. Funk’s book was a great reminder on topics I had forgotten from my college courses in addition to a plethora of information on ideas I never came across. This book tailors to not only experienced, marketing professionals but website owners, and novices alike. In this book, Funk changes subjects rapidly maintaining anyone’s attention. He even seems to explain the essentials from each topic in a way that even the novice readers would be able to maintain a knowledgeable conversation with their marketing team or outside consultants.

Funk discusses the most recent technologies on the Web, and even has a section for readers called the Ten Things You Should Do to Make Your Business More "Web 2.0." This guide covers much of the recent information on today’s most well-known activities on the Web; new ways to attract customers, market, and maintain one’s web site; and methods to prevent the growing issues with cybercrime from affecting the reader. He discusses case studies of many relevant topics and illustrates how each area can and is utilized in real-world situations. He also provides an instructional guide to increase profits through social media and how to foster new relationships through social networking. Furthermore, he discusses the history of web 2.0 and how it has evolved and is leading to web 3.0.

The topic of web 3.0, on the other hand was quite exciting to read about. People feel web 3.0 will be a number of different trends. Some people feel that what is defined as web 3.0 will be when a web application has an overlay of scalable vector graphics (pg 127) or 10 megabits of bandwidth which will be the full video web (pg 128). Others believe that the distinction between professional, semi-professional and consumers will get blurred creating a network of business and applications pg 128). Eric Schmidt, Google CEO feels that web 3.0 will be applications that are pieced together, are small in size, the data is in the cloud, the apps run on all devices whether they are PC or Mobile. The apps are rapid and very customizable, and are distributed through social networks, email, and so forth (pg 128). However, Tom Funk believes that the semantic web, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, universal, portable, and online identities, 3-D internet, and true convergence of web, mobile devices, and other equipment are the trend toward web 3.0 (pg 128).      

The only real short fall of the book was that it only covers the aspects that Tom Funk deems necessary to learn. He does a good job summarizing information but for those who would like a more in depth read into a certain aspect of web 2.0, I would recommend to look elsewhere. The real problem with a book on the subject of technology though is that no matter how new the book is some material will be outdated and inaccurate causing recommendations on methods to no longer be as effective as others. The most effective way to learn about technology is through online articles among other periodicals.

The topic covered that I gained the most background knowledge from was on blogging. I learned that blogs have been around since the 1990s. It was interesting to learn that Blogger launched in 1999. In 2004, the usage of blogging by the novice to the American media surged. By 2006, Time magazine mentioned people who created blogs and other user-generated web content in its celebration of the Person of the Year. Currently, blogs are accepted to the point that mainstream reporters consistently reach out to industry and amateur bloggers for their articles. Also, due to the blogging community being so interlinked, Google’s algorithm is able to filter the quality and nature of the content on the web determining what appears at the top of the search results. It is also interesting to note that according to the book there are over 200 million abandoned blogs and that 120,000 new blogs are created every day with a quarter of them are never revisited by their creators (pg. 4). Additionally, blogs can provide access to authors, scholars, speakers, and authorities that were previously impossible to reach. With this said, just about anyone from all walks of life use a blog. The people who do use them are attempting to get the word out there about their view on a specific subject and the topics are quite diverse.

I would have to say that what stood out to me the most compared to the online tutorials was how blog programs have changed over time and adapted to current needs. When blogs first were introduced, they were limited, standardized daily posts onto a single page, sequential links to archived postings, and visitor comments (pg 5). Now, the variation of blog-authoring tools has increased and the addition of new widgets, as well as design themes has enabled bloggers with significant customization capabilities (pg 5). With the online tutorials, I was only able to experience the current format of blogging and only with Blogger. Furthermore, I did not learn much about the blogging history while using the online tutorials. However, the online tutorials were great at providing a visual for Blogger which allowed me to actually learn how to use the program.