With Google’s financial backing, Steve Chen is optimistic about offering real-time streaming on the Web.

By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen says the site plans to launch a live video service this year.

In a brief interview videotaped at a New York party thrown by YouTube, Chen told Sarah Meyers of Pop17.com that YouTube had always wanted to offer live video but lacked the resources. That, however, has changed, since Google’s acquisition of YouTube in 2006.

The video and transcript of the interview were posted by TechCrunch. In the interview, Meyers asks, “When are you guys gonna do live video on YouTube?”

Chen responds: “2008. We’ll do it this year.” He goes on to say, “Live video is just something that we’ve always wanted to do. We’ve never had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google, we hope to actually launch something this year.”

Live video, which is the ability to use a Web cam to record events and then stream the results in real time to the Web is not new to the Internet. Yahoo launched such a service as an “experimental release” this month.

Along with showing Web cam-generated video streams from people’s computers, Yahoo Live also offers developers an application programming interface for mashing up live video streams on a Web site or client application. The API uses REST, or Representational State Transfer, an XML-based protocol for invoking Web services over HTTP.

A unique feature in the service is the ability to see people watching the same video, assuming their Web cams are linked to the service. In addition, there’s live chat while the video is playing.

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This is the most important acquisition in Sun’s history,” said CEO Jonathan Schwartz.

By Charles Babcock
InformationWeek
February 26, 2008 05:20 PM

Sun Microsystems (NSDQ: JAVA) has completed its acquisition of MySQL six weeks after announcing its intent to do so. As of today, Marten Mickos, MySQL’s former CEO, is now senior VP of a new software database group, reporting to Rich Green, executive VP for software. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz said Mickos also will report directly to him as part of Sun’s senior management team.

The $1 billion cost of acquiring MySQL was worth the price, said Schwartz. MySQL “was the crown jewel of the open source marketplace,” with 11 million customers and “the strategic value of opening new markets to Sun,” he said in a teleconference announcing the closure of the deal on Tuesday.

MySQL is the speedy, open source, Web-page-serving database that’s used by Facebook, Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Slashdot, and other giants of the Web. With Sun’s help, MySQL can now overcome what Schwartz termed “the chief liability of open source companies,” supplying 24/7 global technical support.

The acquisition “marks the end of a remarkable era for MySQL and the beginning of another remarkable one,” Mickos said at the teleconference. “As part of Sun, we will grow to serve more customers with bigger deployments and bigger scalability.”

The announcement was filled with superlatives. “This is the most important acquisition in Sun’s history,” said Schwartz, even though Sun’s $4.1 billion acquisition of Storage Technologies in June 2005 was much larger. Reminded of StorageTek, Schwartz said, “We don’t have any second thoughts about history. MySQL as a database is as much about storage as StorageTek. We’re gathering together the most compelling open source storage platform in the industry.”

Sun is counting on MySQL’s continued growth in the $15 billion-a-year database industry to fuel additional software sales out of the Sun portfolio, although analysts put MySQL’s share of that at somewhere less than $100 million a year in revenue. Both Mickos and Schwartz took pains to say that Linux, not Sun’s Solaris, will remain MySQL’s primary operating system. In fact, MySQL runs on Linux as its most popular platform, with Windows second, and Solaris coming in a distant third. Nevertheless, MySQL was developed on Solaris, said Simon Phipps, chief open source officer at Sun.

At a media summit Feb. 13, Schwartz raised some eyebrows when he said the popular LAMP stack, which includes Linux and MySQL, doesn’t have to be taken literally. Sun will encourage developers to use Solaris, instead of Linux, with the stack.

Regardless of operating system choice, Schwartz asserted that with MySQL, Sun has a set of software that more directly competes withMicrosoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s Windows Server and SQL Server database. “I couldn’t agree more strongly,” he told a questioner, when asked if the acquisition brings Sun closer to head-to-head competition. But Sun will compete on building out the next generation of Web applications for the Internet, not dominance of the desktop.

Sun’s Green said it wasn’t the right time to talk about future possibilities stemming from the acquisition, but it wasn’t unreasonable to expect Sun to more closely integrate MySQL with Sun middleware, such as its GlassFish application server project.

As developers build out Web applications that interact with individual site visitors, answer questions with fresh product information and data, and conduct transactions, Sun wants to be the supplier to the enterprise for the network’s next phase. Sun plans to buy additional open source companies, but it clearly views MySQL as the cornerstone of its campaign. It gives Sun an open door to the builders of the next generation of applications.

That acquisition wasn’t only big for Sun, said Schwartz. “It was the most important acquisition in the industry,” he said during the teleconference.

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Almost every blogger aims to grow their blog and reach a larger audience. Unfortunately, most new bloggers don’t know much about promoting a blog when they are just getting started. The good news is you will learn pretty quickly if you are consistently involved and working at promoting your blog. Here are ten things that I have learned to be true from my experience.

1. Building Significant Search Engine Traffic Will Take Time

New blogs generally take several months, at least, before they gain enough trust from search engines to produce any type of significant flow of traffic. If you are planning to focus on search engines as your primary source of traffic, you would be well advised to also focus on some other sources of traffic, especially in the early months.

Building a blog that is search engine-friendly is critical if you want to maximize search traffic, so take care of that from the start and focus on creating great content that others will talk about and link to.

2. Not All Traffic Is Equal

No two sources of traffic are quite the same. I get a good percentage of the traffic at my blog through social media, and I can attest to the fact that social media traffic is generally less responsive and less likely to stick around than visitors from most other sources. Focusing on stats without looking at the true results can cause a bit of an illusion. Sure, visitors are great, but are they leaving after being on the blog for 30 seconds and never returning?

Search engine traffic is highly sought after because these visitors are actively looking for what you have to offer. But other types of traffic have strong points too. Visitors who are referred from another blog will generally be more responsive since they have been recommended by someone they trust. Every source of traffic has pros and cons, so try to take these things into consideration when you are promoting your blog and analyzing the results.

3. Consistent Posting Is Key

Most bloggers need to keep publishing new posts in order to keep traffic at a certain level. Some bloggers are able to generate large amounts of search engine traffic to older posts to the point that traffic will be fairly sustained without new posts, but this is pretty rare. New posts keep subscribers coming back, they keep social media votes coming, and they keep adding new pages to search engine indexes.

Posting consistently doesn’t mean that you have to post every day, it simply means that you need to publish content on a regular basis, whatever that may be. Almost every blog that successfully draws traffic is publishing new posts with some consistency.

4. Consistent Traffic Is Almost Impossible

Although posting needs to be consistent to keep traffic levels up, that doesn’t mean that it will keep traffic levels consistent. Every blog has ups and downs and two days are rarely the same. This is a natural occurrence and it should be embraced or else it can become very frustrating. Make sure that you enjoy the times when traffic is high, and keep on plugging away to get through the slower times. Blogging would almost be boring is traffic levels didn’t fluctuate like they do.

5. Repeat Visitors Should Be the Goal

Yes, it’s great to see an impressive number of unique visitors arriving at your blog, but how many of them will be back? Repeat visitors are the lifeblood of blogs. Subscribers, of course, are most likely to keep coming back, so focusing on subscribers is typically a good thing.

Repeat visitors will not only help to improve your overall traffic flow and stats, more importantly they will be your most responsive visitors in terms of comments, social media votes, sales, and just about anything else. As they keep coming back and reading your blog, you will be earning more of their trust and your network will grow.

6. Links Help In Several Ways

Building inbound links is a priority for most bloggers, and for good reason. They drive click-through traffic from other blogs, they increase your exposure around the blogosphere, and they help to boost your search engine rankings. Link building is often prioritized because of search engine rankings, but the other factors should not be overlooked. If you blog in a competitive niche, recognition and exposure will be critical in convincing visitors that they should pay attention to you. Getting a few links from respected blogs can help with search engine traffic, but the added credibility that you get can be just as important, especially for newer bloggers.

7. Balance Is Important

Diversity in traffic will help you to avoid losing a huge percentage of your visitors if something unforeseen happens. Search engine rankings are not permanent, especially with Google being so ready and willing to penalize blogs who they feel have violated their guidelines. If you rely too heavily on search engine traffic you could find yourself losing a big portion of your traffic at any given time.

Also, social media traffic is extremely inconsistent, so just because you have been getting decent traffic doesn’t mean it will continue. The best approach is to spread things out and focus on growing traffic from several sources rather than just one. That way you will always be safe and you won’t depend on a particular source for your livelihood.

8. Smaller Sources of Traffic Shouldn’t Necessarily Be Ignored

Not all sources of traffic will send thousands of visitors, but that doesn’t mean that they are not valuable. For example, participating in forums is likely to drive some traffic to your blog, but not tons. However, those visitors can be very valuable because they have met you or learned from you through the forum and they’ll be more likely to subscribe and become a loyal reader.

Likewise, leaving comments on other blogs will bring some traffic, but it is rare that any one comment will bring a lot of visitors. Still, this traffic is valuable because many times they have clicked through due to something that you said catching their attention.

Don’t simply assume that traffic is measured only in terms of numbers. Smaller sources of traffic have been instrumental in building many successful blogs.

9. Networking Is Critical

All successful bloggers are surrounded by a strong network of other successful bloggers. This is something that I didn’t really think much about before I started blogging, but I quickly came to realize the importance of networking.

A strong network will provide you with friends and colleagues that can be a help when you need some advice, they can provide links to your blog, they can give you social media votes, they can be an inspiration and encouragement to you, and they can even wind up being your partners in future projects. Being a strong networker is all about being willing to help others and being proactive in meeting others.

10. Blog Traffic Can Be Bought for Relatively Little Money

If you are interested in getting some extra promotion or growing your blog quickly, there are a number of affordable advertising options that will drive real traffic to your blog. Pay Per Click ads can be very effective and inexpensive (depending on what words and phrases you bid on). StumbleUpon advertising is another option. You can purchase their traffic for just $0.05 per visitor. Even banner advertisements on other blogs can be relatively cheap. Running an ad for a month or more will give you exposure to a new audience and if you were to calculate a cost-per-click it is usually pretty low.

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I’m going to ask you to use your imagination for a moment.

Think of a topic that interests you. Maybe it’s your favorite sport or hobby, for example. Now imagine that you’re searching the Internet for information on that topic.

The first article you come across is related to the topic you’re researching, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of value. It’s too general and full of pointless “fluff.” It makes obvious points that a third-grader could grasp. And it fails to offer any related information or resources.

The second article you come across is much more in-depth. It explains several aspects of your topic with refreshing insight. It is helpful and useful, and it links out to many related articles and resources on the subject.

If you could only bookmark one of these pages for future reference, which one would it be? It would be the second page, right?

You, like most people, would probably prefer the second page to the first. It’s an easy choice, and that’s because the author of the second article understood (and delivered) the most important concept of website content development — the value factor.

5 Benefits of High-Value Web Content

This kind of content has value for the reader, obviously. But it also benefits the author / publisher. Here are the top five benefits of creating high-value website content for your small business website:

1. It keeps people on your website longer.

2. It makes people more inclined to trust you.

3. It encourages readers to recommend the site to others.

4. It encourages other webmasters to link to your content.

5. It helps you improve your search engine ranking and visibility.

All of this sounds great, you say. But how do I create that kind of small business website content? Here are the top five guidelines for creating high-value website content.

 5 Steps to High-Value Web Content

1. Choose the right author.

2. Choose the right topic.

3. Address all sides of the topic.

4. Add supporting graphics, pictures, etc.

5. Link to related resources, both on your site and elsewhere.

Let’s look at each of these steps in greater detail.

1. Choose the Right Author

I once worked for a company who let their web programmers write the instructions for their online ordering process. Big mistake. If their audience were programmers as well, this might be okay. But most of their customers had limited technical skills. So when these people encountered online instructions such as “Validate parameters before advancing” … the customers would often become dead in the water.

This is a prime example of choosing the wrong author for web writing. Sure, the programmers’ input is important. After all, they built the thing. But they should not be the voice of customer guidance. A skilled web writer (someone with usability experience) would have “translated” these instructions to say something like “Please fill in all required information before moving to the next screen.”

Here’s the key to this. The best author for your small business website content is not always the person who knows the most about the product or service from a technical standpoint. Often, it’s best to have an in-house writer who plays the go-between role of “consumer advocate,” getting the information from one group and translating it for another group.

 2. Choose the Right Topic

If your small business only offers one product or service, then that will likely be the topic of your web content. In this case, I would focus on choosing the right angle as well. Don’t tell people what you want them to know — this is an outdated way of thinking about public information, especially when it comes to small business website content. Instead, find out what people want to know about the types of products you offer, and use your web content to address those questions or concerns.

If you are writing web content for a company that has many products or services, you will have to spend more time choosing topics first and choosing your angle second. In this case, it becomes more about topic organization than anything. Large websites with many topics are ideally suited for a category and sub-category system: These are our products >> And this is product ‘A’ >> And this is a web page that explains product ‘A’ in detail.

3. Address All Sides of the Topic

Whether you’re writing about one of your products, or you’re creating a tutorial of some kind, you need to cover all the angles. There’s nothing worse than website content that leaves the job only half-done, telling you why a certain thing is important but not pursuing that lead.

When you are close to a certain topic — as is the case with people who create a product or service — it’s easy to assume everyone else understands it as well as you do. But the opposite is usually true, so you need to explain all sides of a topic when you write content for your small business website.

Want to keep your pages relatively short for easy reading? You can do that while still offering complete information. That’s what hyperlinks are for!

4. Link to Related Resources

Here’s the key to developing great content for your small business website. Try to create authority documents that others in your field would link to and recommend to others. One of the key criteria for a resource document is that it links to plenty of supporting information, both on the same website and elsewhere on the web.

In addition to being good for your readers, this kind of useful content will make other webmasters more inclined to link to your website. This adds to your link “popularity” and can further improve the search engine ranking of your small business website.

When writing a particular web page, try to think of it as “the ultimate guide to [blank].” This is the first step to creating the kind of authority documents that eventually dominate the search engines and drive endless web traffic for the authors. But it’s rarely possible to create an “ultimate guide” to anything in just one page, so be liberal about linking to other sources on your own website and elsewhere (as long as they are not direct competitors).

5. Add Supporting Graphics, Pictures, Etc.

Reading online can be hard on the eyeballs. You can make the reader’s job easier in two ways. First, you can format your content appropriately for web reading (short paragraphs, narrow text columns, lots of bullet points, headers, sub-headers, etc.). Secondly, you can add supporting images and helpful graphics.

Well-placed graphics can improve website content in a number of ways. Images are more enticing than text upon first glance, so they can help attract and retain readers. They also help you clarify your message with visual reinforcement.

Conclusion

I have a motto I use regarding website content. “If it’s not worth putting online, don’t put it online.” This is my reminder to myself that I need to use the techniques outlined above to create superior website content. Because that’s the kind of content that leads to online success. Apply these lessons to your small business website and watch your own success increase!

About The Author
Brandon Cornett operates a web marketing firm in Austin, Texas and is a web writer at large for dozens of websites and blogs. Learn more by visiting http://www.austinseoguy.com.

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Analysts are alarmed at a perceived discrepancy in the figures in iPhone sales figures. Jonny Evans, Macworld

Analysts are mulling over Apple’s iPhone sales numbers and are alarmed at a perceived discrepancy in the figures.

Apple claims slightly over 3.7 million iPhones were sold in 2007 — yet AT&T this week revealed it ended the year with “just at or sightly under two million iPhone customers”.

That two million has been boosted somewhat by an estimated 300,000-400,000 sales in Europe, analysts believe.

The discrepancy is that the 3.7 million iPhones Apple says it has sold and the estimated 2.4 million sold by its network partners still leaves 1.3 million of the devices unaccounted for.

That implies that around one in three iPhones are being purchased in order to unlock the device for use on other networks and/or for use with unapproved third party applications.

While it’s possible some iPhones were sold over the Christmas period but not activated immediately as new users (perhaps) worked to cancel their existing mobile contracts, the discrepancy still implies an active market for unlocked iPhones.

Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook told analysts this week that the company believes the number of unlocked iPhones in the wild to be “significant,” but declined to furnish accurate figures.

Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research cites these figures in order to claim a substantial market in unlocked iPhones, and speculates this news may also mean a build-up in iPhone inventory.

“It indicates end-user demand for iPhone is lower than many investors may think based on Apple’s sales figure — and it points to slower iPhone sales in the current quarter, since much of this inventory is likely to be drawn down,” the analyst explains.

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Rumours are emerging that Nokia is in talks with Facebook to port the generally still-in-favour social network to its range of handsets. Sources have suggested that this could be as prominent a placement as the “YouTube” button is on Apple’s iPhone.

Facebook could benefit from Nokia’s advertising campaigns in retail outlets, and there’s even the possibility of Nokia “doing a Microsoft” and buying a stake in the young company.

If these rumours are based on even a smidgen of truth, then it marks another expansion of Nokia’s empire.

A senior Nokia executive is reported as saying, “There is talk of a partnership in the works… it’s safe to say we’re testing the waters and things still have to be worked out,” but, unsurprisingly, no official word from either company.

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