My RSS Aggregator picked up a few items on Cloud Computing today and each item tells a very different story of Cloud Computing. 

1) Rackspace blows away cloud computing myths

2) Omniture’s Outage Woes

3) IBM Sets Its Sights On Cloud Computing With LotusLive

These items are written and posted all day every day. Contradicting each other in some ways, supporting in others, redefining and ever evolving.

This isn’t the first time we have seen Cloud Computing, it’s just the first time we are calling it cloud computing. Many years ago it was ASP ( Application Service Providers), recently it was SaaS and the emerging term now is Cloud Computing. Lets call all of these “Internet applications”

So why do we keep trying to push Internet applications as opposed to desktop software or internally developed and managed software. One reason, cost. Cloud Computing is the non committal IT purchasing mangers dream.  You can buy in and be up and running in minimal time at limited term requirements. Some service run on an pay as you go or  month to month program. Many of the larger companies in Internet Application  space focus on annual contracts to mitigate risks and cover setup fees.  Just because its in the cloud doesn’t mean there isn’t setup.

But it’s not all rainbows and sunshine otherwise we would all be operating on ASP programs and we would have never needed the reincarnation known as SaaS and  Cloud Computing.
Internet Applications failed to reach mainstream and overtake desktop software in the past due to the limitation of the web. That is limitation of the web servers, database servers,  overall speed and accessibility of the Internet and also very much due to the limitations of older browsers. Well Servers are more powerful than ever, the Internet itself is more accessible than ever and there is true competition in browsers that is driving progress and innovation. There is also an ever growing community of web developers with new ideas, talent and overall understanding of web technologies. 

So is Cloud Computing going to stick this time? Not if history has anything to say about. The problem is that the desktop is more powerful to the individual user than the service providing web server. So what happens is the demands of the user outpace the web technology powering Internet applications.

But does it matter if cloud computing survives this time? NO. This isn’t even the right question to ask yourself.

The right question is this.
 Is cloud computing the right option for my business right now? And to this question, in this recession, the overwhelming answer for almost all companies is yes.

This will not always be the case, technology will evolve, business will need more customization or privacy, users will require advanced services. And when these things come to a head it will be the time to invest in the desktop again with internally managed software. This is OK. This is a cycle and right now we are in the Internet Application segment of the cycle.

But can Cloud Computing sustain this time. Well what would it take for Cloud Computing to keep up with increasing demands.  How about the following.

• Fast and robust Internet connection,
• universal / anywhere access to the Internet
• Powerful Networking
• Powerful Servers
• Powerful Browsers

Each one of these items needs to not only keep up but lead the industry to keep Cloud Computing from losing out the desktop again.

Google knows this. I have to wonder how how long Google has been targeting and working on this strategy or if it just evolved into this. 
For Google Apps to take off and sustain popularity indefinitely it needs to address each of the items above. So lets take a look at what steps they have taken.

• Fast and robust Internet connection,
  • Google Data Centers and purchase Dark Fiber, an Internet within the Internet  http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/Google-and-Its-Continuing-Dark-Fiber-Mystery/     

• Universal / Anywhere Access to the Internet
  • Google Lobbies for Wireless Spectrum usage  http://news.cnet.com/Googles-battle-for-wireless-spectrum/2008-1039_3-6199374.html
  • http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/breaking/google-wireless-spectrum-bid-is-on-328429.php
  • Obama Broadband plans http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_03/b4116027365196.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily
    
• Powerful Networking
  • Google Builds its own routers http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10137682-92.html  
• Powerful Servers
  • Google designs its own servers to for powerful performance easy maintenance http://gigaom.com/2008/12/29/how-google-is-influencing-server-design/  
• Powerful Browsers
  • Google creates its own browser. Google Chrome  
     
• The only other thing Google needs is regular innovation in application features and design. And for them that’s easy
  • http://code.google.com/
  • http://www.google.com/programming-contest/ 

So will Cloud Computing survive the user demands in innovation and the competition of desktop performance?

I’s more likely now than ever and Google has a the infrastructure to make it happen.

I attended my first search engine strategies conference in 2003 and I really took to it. I enjoyed modifying sites and seeing the results in search engines. You really feel and see a positive impact being made in the company.

The most unfortunate thing that I see in SEO today is the wild goose chases that are discrediting the entire industry. What’s worse is that for the most part the SEO industry is doing this to its self. 

Let me state it load and clear, your super secret ultimate google hack is not real and you have not found the path to SEO GOLD.

Here’s why

• First off it is a hack.
• Second it’s not supported by any search engine
• Third. Search engines make changes constantly without any warning. So even if your trick/hack does work it likely won’t work for long.
• Fourth: Even if you are an avid tester of your techniques it doesn’t matter because your technique could be destroyed with one  algorithm change
• Fifth: Even if your hack does work, by the time you actually get it in place it will no loger work and you are going to look like a fool contradicting your self to a client in a month when your super hack doesn’t actually work
• Sixth: Your making your self look like you don’t know what you are doing.
• Seventh: You are lying. you are selling something that does not exist. Another word for this is fraud.  In three months your client will see through you and you will lose the work. Try this, set realistic expectations, embrace a testing method and include the client in the testing process.
• You are hurting your self and tarnishing the industry
   

I am not saying that you should stop trying to innovate and find a way to get ahead but I am saying you should stop selling it. Many of these theories likely came to be through some sort of observation and good intentions but since we, the mareketers, are at the mercy of the search engines, we can not establish any of these threroies as laws.

REAL SEO experts, enthusiasts etc… know better. For long term strategy success follow the basics and don’t fall for wild goose chase hacks or you will spend all your time cleaning up the mistakes from your 

Here are some great posts covering SEO Goose Chases. I’ll admit that I ave fallen for a few of these myself. Some I still do just out of habit.

•  Top Ten Organic SEO Myths
• Destroying the Myths of SEO and PPC
• Three SEO Myths Debunked

The real question now is how do we reeducate the average business on white hat SEO that establishes a long term strategy and follows the basics supported by the major search engines.

And as the bumper sticker clearly states, “If momma ain’t happy… Ain’t nobody happy.”

I have spent the last 7 years  optimizing sites for search engines and content aggregators. Making sure that every piece of content is syndicated and notifying systems to generate non paid traffic. Over this time I have heard, and repeated, over and over that “Content is King”.  This is true, the more content you generate the more content will likely be indexed by search engines and and the more traffic you are likely to get from long-tail keyterms. This simple idea created a a tsunami of content. Write write write and post post post. Have you noticed how everything has a blog now. Every TV show has a blog and every character on the show has a blog (a hint of relevance).  For a brand new site this is not a bad strategy to get traffic moving. But then what. If you keep posting content without purpose  you will begin to see your bounce rates sky rocket. So people are stumbling on to your site through long-tail keyterms only to leave immediately. What a waste.

This is where relevance comes in.
I should really say relevance and timeliness.  Relevance in content goes beyond simply writing good copy that will explain what the majority of visitors are asking. Relevance is purposeful content plus the ability to segment that content into specific categories and extend that content into other systems. Most importantly, relevant content in this meaning is content that can be grouped so that it is relevant to the individual. WordPress and other Web 2.0 platforms have really beaten the path when it comes to making content relevant. By creating categories and automatically tag pages and automatically syndicating through RSS and automatic emailing of particular content and on and on and on. Content is sliced and diced so easily with Web 2.0 systems such as blogs and forums. However, relevance means elbow grease if you are maintaining an enterprise or a corporate website, with content that needs to change and or grow over time. OK that is pretty much common sense. What I am trying to say here is update your content while maintaining the URL and make sure that content aggregates and search engines are aware of the changes you are making.

Now add timeliness.
Timeliness for online marketing means “Today”. It means timely, relevant content for today, and if possible within the last few hours.

Here’s a scenario. You are interested in creating content for a blog or community for your company. You have prepared a few posts and while they are generally interesting they are unlikely to really spike traffic. You need a tie into current events. Some topic that the masses are currently interested in. So as an example I will take a look at Google Trends and I see the top ten items people are searching on today. Perhaps I can tie one of these items into my post. For example item #6 is “safety reliability methods” (just yesterday Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III safely landed flight US Airways Flight 1549 safely in the Hudson) so it is likely that people are searching on safety and reliability information today. So here is a timely reference that can help place a timely spin on your post or even inspire a new post. Your probably thinking OK that is pretty short lived and in this case you are correct. The interest of the masses changes quickly and while this did spike traffic this week, what about next week. Well this technique is better for blogs and next week you will have a new relevant post.

The point here is that content alone will not bring qualified traffic to your site.  Sure content is King but without relevance the King will be a peasant in no time.
Writing timely unique content plus the ability to group, syndicate and notify content aggregators will establish a strong long term strategy.

Interesting post from Website Magazine on how SEO is changing from a from universal SEO techniques to more targeted techniques as local and personalized search continue to emerge.

The End of SEO – Chicago SES 2008 Key Take Away – Website Magazine – Website Magazine

There is something very appealing and yet unsettling about the design of Little Big Planet.
Either way the site is entertaining.
http://mysackboy.littlebigplanet.com/

As a follow up to my previous post on online Marketing in a Recession part 1 this is a discussion on how to use social networking websites to build a linking strategy.

Social Networking websites are now the most visited websites on the net, surpassing pornographic websites according to (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1678586,00.html)

So how do you take advantage of this for your business?

It is simple, …participate… just be social…. online. Be warned,  It is very time consuming to set up because there are so many social sites to be on. It takes a little less time to maintain and there are no guarantees but if you nurture the social marketing channel the payoff can be huge.

Startups are creating “social media” everywhere and about everything all you have to do is invest the time to participate. Does this mean that companies needing a director of social marketing position in the future? Possibly, stranger things have happened. Imagine if ten years ago someone told you they just took a job as a search engine marketing manager… Well. Perhaps that will be a followup to this post. The Social marketing channel manager position

Social Video Sharing ________________________________________________

Have a video of you speaking at a conference, a video of your product, a viral video about your industry? Post it on social video sharing websites.

Start with YouTube. When you upload your video you can add a description, title, link back to your site, etc… If you have multiple videos create a branded YouTube channel for your videos. By the way YouTube is owned by Google. When you add the description and title you are adding indexible content to your video making it possible to show up in relevant searches.

Here are some video sharing sites.

• Youtube
• Vimeo
• Blip
• heres a  big list http://www.iyiz.com/63-social-video-sharing-sites/

Social Photo Sharing ________________________________________________

Same idea as sharing your videos on video sharing sites. Add your pictures of your products, pictures of you at a conference or tradeshow anything that has to do with your company that is real.You will also be able to add titles descrtiptions and more to these as well as create photostreams/ galleries and so on with links back to your site.

• Flickr ( a must, owned by Yahoo)
• Picasa (owned by Google)
• Here is a huge list http://hubpages.com/hub/images-photographs-hosting-sharing-searching-services

Social Bookmarking ________________________________________________

This is a great social media channel. Easy to participate, hard to penetrate. One of my first posts on this blog was about Stumble Upon and how it spiked traffic 600% over night and increased sales.

Social bookmarkingis basically saving a list of favorites and easily sharing those favorites with your friends. Now, imagine you sell motorcycle parts for a antique bikes. Your not sure how to reach your niche audience other than bike shows and trade mags. Now suppose an antique biker comes across your site and bookmarks your site through a bookmarkign service. Now that potential customer has just shared your site with all of their friends on that services. You have just penetrated a “social pool” of niche customers.This is what happened to a former client of mine that boosted their sales and spiked traffic 600%.

Here are some social bookmarking services.

• StumbleUpon
• Digg
• Technorati
• MySpace
• Reditt
• Delicious
• Google Bookmarks
• Windows Live

Make it easy for users to book mark your site by using addthis or  sharethis

The List goes on ________________________________________________

Wikipedia – Create a page on Wikipedia about your company –
Ever notice how often Wikipedia shows up in search results and often in the top 5. If your site does not appear on the first page, perhaps the Wikipedia page about your company will

Twitter – Start using twitter so people can follow your company updates ( you will be surprised how many companies are delivering timely info this way)

Business – as personal as the local chamber of commerce with a national reach

• LinkedIn – Participate, create aprofile, joind industry groups and create a company profiles
• Xing – similar to  Linked in
• ZoomInfo – Create a company and personal profile

Depending on your product and company the “social” social networks may be appropriate as well.

• Bebo
• mySpace
• Freindster
• FaceBook
• Friendfeed

Look for a post on discover Vertical Social networks reach more of your niche.

Alexa, Alexa, Alexa…

www.Alexa.com

Not a week goes by that I do not have someone bring up Alexa reporting and say that is says so and so is getting more traffic than so and as so. People/competitors/consultants refer to Alexa traffic reporting as a justification for some of the services or products they are recommending. For those of you not familiar with Alexa, it is a website traffic measuring service that aims to provide free competitive intelligence to the masses.

My problem with Alexa is that it’s data is far from accurate. I am not going to get int to a rant about the inaccuracies as more than enough people have already exposed these issues.

Here are a few examples:
http://www.thenetfool.com/when-alexa-attacks/
http://www.mediacollege.com/internet/utilities/alexa/
http://www.e-consultancy.com/forum/101280-how-accurate-is-alexa-for-traffic-measurement.html

Why is it inaccurate?
Ok, I lied I’m going to rant.

The short story is that it only tracks web traffic from people who have the Alexa toolbar installed on their browser. Do you have it installed? I don’t and I do not know anyone that does. So anyone that does not have the Alexa toolbar installed will not be counted in the website traffic. Of course if you install the Alexa widget into your site than it can more accurately track your websites traffic.

But why add the widget/tracking to your site? Who cares about what Alexa says? Well Alexa makes it’s traffic data public including the traffic data about your website. So if you do not have the tracking widget installed you will look like you are getting less traffic than a website that has this tracking installed..

So the logic here is; include the Alexa tracking widget or we will shame you by displaying innacurate data about your site. Data that will most likely make it appear that your online efforts are falling short comapred to competitors. The uninformed marketer often sees a reference to Alexa report and gets worried that their online efforts are failing. For this, Alexa, you are doing more harm than good.

Don’t get me wrong Alexa is an entertaining product and if luck is on my side and shows that my sites are getting more traffic than competitors, it puts a smile on my face. But that is as useful as it gets.  I certainly would not build any strategy around Alexa reporting.

Compete.com

Compete
Compete seemed to have started out with the same agenda as Alexa but has morphed into a slightly more useful tool. Sure it’s traffic reporting is still very much an estimate. Currently their sample size is 2 million US Internet users. Unlike Alexa it collects data via toolbars, surveys, Aggregate data from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like AOL* and Comcast* and Applications Service Providers (ASPs) Like web mail*.

So, they are getting a broader mix of internet users in their sample and I would trust Compete.com over Alexa.com but still wouldn’t make any important decision based solely on their reports.

*AOL COMCAST and web mail are examples of ISPs and ASPs  only and are note  necessarily associated with Compete.com

Quantcast

How accurate is Quantcast data? Well, it collects data via a mix of sources similar to Compete.com. Sources include  advertisers, publishers, ISPs and advertising networks. It’s “Media Planner” service is still branded as beta but looks very promising so far.

Professional Competitive Services.
Aside from the services mentioned above there are pay services that can can collect much more targeted information. The three big companies in this space are Comscore, Hitwise and Neilson Netrating. These service are excellent, but very expensive for a small business. Usually in the tens of thousands of dollars per year.  My experience with these services have revealed that they are most useful for major Internet brands and and large business. When it comes to a small website or a local brand for a small to medium sized business, there just isn’t enough data to reveal anything more than what Compete or Quantcast.

Check back for a more detailed comparison of these companies.

What are your experiences with these services? Is there another you would recommend?