Connect With Us (+1) 646 827 3800

Achieving Influency* Through Long Tail Marketing and Content Optimization

Monthly Archives: July 2011

In “Truth In Advertising” : “Truth” Is a Relative Term

Posted on July 29, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 0 Comments

What do you think of Truth in Advertising?

If I answer that question cynically,  I guess I just snarkily offer up the opinion that Truth in Advertising is an oxymoron. There is no Truth in Advertising.

But if I go too far the other way, the question of what Truth in Advertising is gets similar short shrift. Advertising becomes almost a matter of political correctness, with no real meaning attached. I encountered that at a Cheesecake Factory Restaurant a few months ago, where the laws in New York requiring that chains above a certain size post caloric counts for their food led to one pasta dish being rated at—I’m not kidding—550 to 2100 calories. ... READ MORE of In “Truth In Advertising” : “Truth” Is a Relative Term at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (539 words, 2 images, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO

Huge Business Change: Merchant Accounts Are (Almost) Free!

Posted on July 27, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 3 Comments

As our clients know, we prefer payments for services at Answer Guy Central via electronic means. And we offer lower rates for our clients when they agree to follow a no-collections-or-billing-necessary business process we’ve set up through PayPal. It’s at least partially due to this that when PayPal discontinued their Money Market Fund a few weeks ago I pointed out that there are other choices for moving money around but that we’d probably be staying put.

Business process pays huge dividends, but because establishing and setting up a business process can be difficult, it can be painful to change one. ... READ MORE of Huge Business Change: Merchant Accounts Are (Almost) Free! at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (427 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change

Music, Clouds, Spots, and Messed-Up Computers

Posted on July 25, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 3 Comments

Last week, the most anticipated launch of a cloud music service finally happened here in the USA. Spotify, available for years in much of the rest of the world, finally got their licensing and server acts together and turned on their “listen to almost anything for free even if you don’t own it” music service.

And with that breathless couple of compound sentences, I haven’t even begun to tell the story.

“The Cloud” matters. I’ve told you this several times, and while music streaming might not seem all that important to you, it’s enormously popular and both a great test of cloud service capabilities and people’s adoption of new ideas. The Cloud is business change. ... READ MORE of Music, Clouds, Spots, and Messed-Up Computers at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (755 words, 1 image, estimated 3:01 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change

Google: So Dominant in Data, They No Longer Care About Data

Posted on July 22, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 8 Comments

When Google decided this week to shut down Google Labs, people who analyze these things scratched their heads, and then mostly opined that Google was shuttering Labs to concentrate on core business opportunities.

True enough. But then something else happened that brought into focus where that core is: Google is Killing the Google Toolbar.

This isn’t really that big a deal when viewed in its own right. As Google points out, quite a bit of what’s “in” the Google Toolbar is handled directly by browsers; in many ways the Google Toolbar has become redundant. ... READ MORE of Google: So Dominant in Data, They No Longer Care About Data at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (435 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Search Engine Optimization SEO

The Newest Mac Mini, and The Evil That Is Apple

Posted on July 21, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 1 Comment

Mac Mini With No Optical Drive

Yesterday, Apple released a bunch of new products. There’s a new version of the Macintosh Operating System that makes your computer act a lot more like an iPad, and also adds other new features. There are new laptop computers, and Apple’s eliminated a few models. In short, yesterday was just another one of Apple’s a-couple-of-times-each-year product drops.

Except for what Apple did to that darned Mac Mini. ... READ MORE of The Newest Mac Mini, and The Evil That Is Apple at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (517 words, 1 image, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Media

Google Page Rank Secret Sauce and Search Engine Optimization

Posted on July 20, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 2 Comments

Google Secret Sauce SEO White Paper Stats

When I write, I stress over whether my words are fun to read, their value to your business change efforts, and whether I’m talking about the same topics too often. We don’t get a tremendous number of comments here, so I rely on feedback I get from other sources. Yesterday’s article on how Google PageRank works generated its share of feedback, with Tweets like this one, email, and comments all coming in.

And then I started thinking about something that’s never far from my mind. ... READ MORE of Google Page Rank Secret Sauce and Search Engine Optimization at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (423 words, 1 image, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Content, Search Engine Optimization SEO

Google Tries to Beat Anti-Trust, Lowers Ranking, Raises It.

Posted on July 19, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 21 Comments

How’s your page rank? Better question yet, how’s your PageRank?

You’re forgiven if you don’t know the answers, or don’t even know what PageRank is. But Search Engine Optimization Consultants know, and over the last few weeks Google’s dropped their own PageRank, then raised it again. SEO Consultants are scratching their heads on how and why that would happen, but I think I know the answer:

Google’s afraid of anti-trust legislation being threatened by the United States Congress, and their PageRank fluctuations are a misdirect. And a pretty clever one at that. ... READ MORE of Google Tries to Beat Anti-Trust, Lowers Ranking, Raises It. at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (535 words, 1 image, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Search Engine Optimization SEO

Thou Shalt Not Censor (The First Law of Coopetition)

Posted on July 18, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 1 Comment

A couple of years ago, I commented on Amazon imposing a form of censorship upon Kindle users. That post did its job; aside from entertaining and informing, it boosted our search engine optimization for the long-tail marketing phrase “kindle censorship”.

Censorship’s become an occasionally-recurrent theme here, but it was just today that I realized there was a connection between censorship and another favorite theme—coopetition.

Thanks to our friends at Facebook, I just realized that the number one enemy of coopetition is something that has no place in your business change plans.

Yep. It’s censorship. ... READ MORE of Thou Shalt Not Censor (The First Law of Coopetition) at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (431 words, 1 image, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Development

The Storage Isn’t Google; on Amazon Cloud Music Gets Free-er

Posted on July 15, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 0 Comments

A while back I told you about the best-yet-chance-of-outdoing-iTunes approach Google Music is taking to the music business. It’s almost becoming a theme; Google+ is better than Facebook, and although Google+ isn’t mature yet, it’s a great example of Google making better stuff than their competitors in key markets.

Amazon is doing their best to get into new businesses, too. The Amazon Cloud puts the retail giant into cloud storage in a way that has to impress any student of business change, and although Amazon Cloud Music felt a bit under-cooked when Amazon got together with Lady Gaga, Amazon’s cloud plans are starting to look smarter. ... READ MORE of The Storage Isn’t Google; on Amazon Cloud Music Gets Free-er at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (373 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change

The Best Thing About Google+ ? Google’s Listening

Posted on July 14, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 1 Comment

In this week’s Google+ -fest, I’ve pointed out a few things about Google’s Facebook-targeted social networking effort that I hope get you thinking. Today, the most important thing about Google+ :

Google is listening to user feedback.

This is the most important part of both business change and customer service, right? You can’t manage customer service or business change unless you know what your customers are thinking and where they want you to take them. Google, unlike Facebook, understands this, and just as important is doing something about it. ... READ MORE of The Best Thing About Google+ ? Google’s Listening at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (284 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Customer Service

Netflix: New Media Business Acts Like Old Media Company

Posted on July 13, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 8 Comments

Reed Hastings is lucky he’s rich, because if he’s behind a move Netflix made yesterday he may be the stupidest CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, ever.

We’re taking a break from analyzing Google+ today, because yesterday Mr. Hastings’ Netflix initiated a business change that was so large and so misguided I just had to comment.

Netflix, a company that pretty much put the video store business out of business by offering DVDs in the mail for a better price and then deftly transitioned to an Internet video delivery service, has announced what amounts to a 60% price hike. You, the Netflix customer, get nothing in return. ... READ MORE of Netflix: New Media Business Acts Like Old Media Company at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (364 words, estimated 1:27 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Customer Service, Media

Soon Means Now: More Google+, Less Robert Scoble

Posted on July 12, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 2 Comments

There’s way too much noise in social networking. It’s the reason we started thefacelift.co, and it’s the reason that Google+ is going to succeed. Or already is succeeding; unconfirmed reports suggest that Google+ already has over ten million users, just two weeks after Google threw the switch on their better-than-Facebook social network.

Social Networking is supposed to be about engagement. And as I told you yesterday, Google+ goes farther in this regard than, say, Facebook, or Twitter. But in the course of rolling out Google+, Google has made a couple of mistakes that it would be great to see them recover from. ... READ MORE of Soon Means Now: More Google+, Less Robert Scoble at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (346 words, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change

The Facelift of Social Networking SCARES Facebook

Posted on July 11, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 9 Comments

Last summer, I became involved in a plan to do a makeover of social networking. We designed thefacelift.co as a simpler, more secure spin on social networking.

And then, we stepped back. And because nothing happens on the Internet that isn’t worked on hard and carefully curated, Facelift has attracted only a few dozen registrants, many of whom have simply posted spammy links there.

Ahh, to be Google.

A couple of weeks ago, Google began opening up the doors to Google+. If you click that link you can see my profile there, which so far I’m only playing around with. ... READ MORE of The Facelift of Social Networking SCARES Facebook at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (385 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change

Change Your Internet Browser Software! Quick! Right Now!

Posted on July 8, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 4 Comments

What software are you using for browsing the Internet? What version? How old is it? Is it secure? DO YOU CARE?

Yes, you do. Or you need to. And yesterday Yahoo! showed me why.

Browser updates are one of those computer issues that keep on coming up, but shouldn’t. I may hate Apple, but they handle this the right way; when Mac OS downloads system updates it also updates your Safari web browser software. You don’t need to know or do anything. Microsoft has recently begun sneaking browser updates for Internet Explorer into Windows system updates, but the process is slightly clumsier and it seems like whenever Internet Explorer updates the changes are dramatic enough that you can’t help but notice them—and likely be confused. ... READ MORE of Change Your Internet Browser Software! Quick! Right Now! at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (578 words, 1 image, estimated 2:19 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change

The Cloud: Important. Cloud Services: Still Stealing

Posted on July 7, 2011 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 1 Comment

The Cloud.jpg

You’re in the cloud, right?

Well, of course you are. Even if you don’t think or talk about it using platitudes, there’s some application you use that works on The Internet instead of on your own computer or network. I’ve mentioned before that you need to start taking this “cloud” thing seriously.

When I wrote that piece on taking The Cloud seriously, I pointed out that I had set up my son with an Ubuntu installation that utilized exactly two pieces of software that didn’t come as part of his new operating system. One is Evernote, for taking notes easily, and the other is Dropbox, which gives you access to all of your important files from any computer. ... READ MORE of The Cloud: Important. Cloud Services: Still Stealing at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (529 words, 1 image, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Content, Media




Answer Guy Central Influency and Integrated Marketing, New York NY 10128

 

Copyright © 2004-2013, PC-VIP Inc

Return Home

Connect With Us (+1) 646 827 3800