Mediaboss Marketing

I recently gave a presentation on Internet Marketing and Social Media to a group of local professionals. Now, that in itself isnt something unusual, but something that happened during the presentation was. Towards the end of the presentation, somebody raised their hand and asked what a blog was. I had to take a step back, because many times people will not speak up when they dont understand something. It was a great reminder that technology, the Internet and Social Media may not be new to some people, but others are just getting their feet wet.

So to members of our blog audience who may be unfamiliar with some of the items that have been written about here, I decided it was a good time to pull together a quick list of items that we have referenced a number of times but have never truly defined.

Alt Text, or alternative text This is a reference to text that is assigned to a particular image on your website. This is done on the backend. You would want images on your website to have alt text for a few reasons. One, it gives search engines an idea of what the image is about (they are getting better at recognizing images, but they are not all the way there yet). Two, some people turn images off within their browsers to make their Internet experience go faster. By having alt text on an image, these visitors will see the text you choose to describe the image. It could be as basic as a friendly face, or as important as a promotion that you use an image to explain. And three, for the visually impaired who have the content of your website read to them, the reading program will read the image alt text to help describe what the web page is all about.

Backlink The term backlink refers to links on other websites that point back to yours. They can come from directories, industry websites, local business websites, chambers or any other site out there. Search engines recognize links from high quality, related websites as a factor in determining how well your website should rank on SERPs.

Blog You could go to Wikipedia and read there extremely long explanation of what a blog is, or you could read a few, like ours, and see for yourself. Basically businesses use blogs to communicate with their customers on the Internet on a regular basis. Information on the company, a product, the brand and the industry can all be shared, with text, videos, images or links to other web pages.

Content Management System, or CMS When we speak of a CMS, we are referring to a web CMS. These are applications that allow website managers to create and manage the content, and sometimes the design, or their website. Many are easier for non techies to use, allowing them to create and upload content by themselves.

Cookie Tiny pieces of data sent from a website to a visitors browser. This enables the website to remember that the visitor has been to the site before, along with other bits of information, depending on the cookie. It can remember a user name for a site, keep products in an online shopping cart or even remembering user preferences.

Keyword Rankings Keywords or keyword phrases are terms used to describe the words that a person may type into a search engine to find something. For any particular business, there are keywords that their target audience would type in when looking for their product or service. When someone types in these phrases, a business would want to show up near the top of a SERP because that is where the most clicks through to websites happen. Where a particular website ranks for a keyword is called the Keyword Ranking (i.e., If I am a shoe website, and someone types in Air Jordans, I would want my website to come up in the first placement, with a keyword ranking of #1. But maybe I am a new site, and I am on the bottom of page 2. In that case, my keyword ranking may be #20.).

Long Tail Keywords, or just long tail When people reference long tail keywords they are typically referring to phrases that have at least 3 words in them. They tend to be narrowly focused, and more in line with what the searcher is truly looking for. Many times they may not be as popular as the most commonly typed in phrases, but are typically easier to gain good keyword rankings for.

Mobile website Most websites are initially built for a big screen, either a desktop or a laptop. However, as more and more people are browsing the Internet with their SmartPhones, websites that look good on a monitor arent always looking their best on a smaller phone. When this happens, web developers build a Mobile Website, which is a version of a website that looks good and performs well on a SmartPhone.

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Digital Marketing Terms – The Basics

SELECTIVE CENSORSHIP- Study finds criticism is accepted well but any suggestion of collective action is a no-no

WHEN Barack Obama visited China in 2009, the American leader made it a point to publicly declare himself "a big supporter of non-censorship" and said that criticism made him a better president.

"I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable," he said. "They can begin to think for themselves."

Implicit in his remarks was the assumption that Chinese censors try to stamp out criticisms of the government and Communist Party.

Well, a new study by Harvard University casts doubt on that supposition. The study, which investigated "the most extensive effort to selectively censor human expression ever implemented", declares that the purpose of the Chinese censorship programme "is not to suppress criticism of the state or the party".

Censorship of social media in China, it turns out, is by no means a blunt instrument. Instead, it is finely tuned, with censors across the country allowing critical viewpoints of the government and of government officials.

"Posts with negative, even vitriolic, criticism of the state, its leaders and its policies are not more likely to be censored," the study, led by Professor Gary King of Harvard's department of government, concluded.

"Negative posts do not accidentally slip through a leaky or imperfect system. The evidence indicates that the censors have no intention of stopping them."

Even more surprisingly, the study concludes that the Chinese government is pretty evenhanded when it censors the Internet, deleting "views that are both supportive and critical of the state".

The primary goal of censorship, it turns out, is to restrict "the spread of information that may lead to collective action", even action that is not directed against the government or, indeed, is not overtly political.

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Beijing works the Internet to its advantage

A looming land grab for internet governance by the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU) could spell a drastic change for governments and internet service providers alike.

However, misguided or not, the union's motivations are far from a desire to annex the internet, observers say.

Representatives from 193 nations will convene in Dubai this December to redefine the scope of the ITU's International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR) treaty, a set of principles governing global telecommunications interconnects and cost structures last re-negotiated in 1988.

The treaty currently covers operational, regulatory, economic and legal concerns in telecommunications, including things as banal as the 'accounting principals' behind interconnection fees.

But the ITU intends to update the treaty to account for the biggest single change since its negotiation: the global spread of the internet.

The regulations, primarily aimed at traditional voice networks, were developed well before the advent of Skype, and before VoIP as a technology began eating into the core voice revenue stream telcos traditionally relied upon.

According to iiNet's chief technology officer. John Lindsay, new delivery models have given the "old world" of government-owned telcos an impetus to fight back.

"The ITU would love to make the messy unregulated world of VoIP and online content go away," Lindsay told iTnews.

Though seen by countries and some ISPs as an attempt by the ITU to 'fix' the problem, Lindsay said it is also the one the union initially created.

"The ITU can be thanked for sky-high global roaming charges, high international voice terminating access prices, and codifying the Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing plan," he said.

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Censorship vs economics in battle for internet control

Schools Coalition, ACLU of Utah express concerns to superintendent.

Controversy in the Davis School District over limiting student access to a book about a lesbian couple raising a family continued Thursday, when a national anti-censorship group asked school officials to reconsider a recent decision to place the picture book In Our Mothers House behind counters in elementary libraries.

The Kids Right to Read Project, a joint effort of the New York-based National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, wrote to Superintendent Bryan Bowles.

"Parents who object to the book could easily supervise their childrens reading choices," the groups said, but restricting the access of others "diminishes the education value of the library whose primary role is to allow students to make choices according to their own interests, experiences, and family values."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah on Tuesday sent a similar letter to Bowles, stating that the decision to limit access to the book by author Patricia Polacco is likely unconstitutional.

"Federal courts have consistently concluded that the First Amendment protects student access to books in their school libraries, free from limits based on the administrations disagreement with the viewpoints expressed in the books," said John Mejia, legal director of the ACLU of Utah.

"From what we know of the districts removal of the book, we have serious concerns that the district may have fallen short of these protections."

The districts decision to keep the book behind the counter followed an April 30 meeting during which a seven-member committee determined it isnt aligned with district curriculum standards. The committee of teachers, administrators and parents voted 6-1 to keep the book off shelves, with Bountiful High librarian Trudena Fager casting the dissenting vote.

District spokesman Chris Williams said the decision was made because state law dictates that curriculum cannot advocate homosexuality.

Concerns about the book surfaced in January, after the mother of a kindergarten student at Windridge Elementary in Kaysville became upset when her child checked out the book and brought it home. The mother and her husband took their concerns to elementary school officials, according to Williams.

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Anti-censorship group joins conversation about book limitation in Davis County

Schools Coalition, ACLU of Utah express concerns to superintendent.

Controversy in the Davis School District over limiting student access to a book about a lesbian couple raising a family continued Thursday, when a national anti-censorship group asked school officials to reconsider a recent decision to place the picture book In Our Mothers House behind counters in elementary libraries.

The Kids Right to Read Project, a joint effort of the New York-based National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, wrote to Superintendent Bryan Bowles.

"Parents who object to the book could easily supervise their childrens reading choices," the groups said, but restricting the access of others "diminishes the education value of the library whose primary role is to allow students to make choices according to their own interests, experiences, and family values."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah on Tuesday sent a similar letter to Bowles, stating that the decision to limit access to the book by author Patricia Polacco is likely unconstitutional.

"Federal courts have consistently concluded that the First Amendment protects student access to books in their school libraries, free from limits based on the administrations disagreement with the viewpoints expressed in the books," said John Mejia, legal director of the ACLU of Utah.

"From what we know of the districts removal of the book, we have serious concerns that the district may have fallen short of these protections."

The districts decision to keep the book behind the counter followed an April 30 meeting during which a seven-member committee determined it isnt aligned with district curriculum standards. The committee of teachers, administrators and parents voted 6-1 to keep the book off shelves, with Bountiful High librarian Trudena Fager casting the dissenting vote.

District spokesman Chris Williams said the decision was made because state law dictates that curriculum cannot advocate homosexuality.

Concerns about the book surfaced in January, after the mother of a kindergarten student at Windridge Elementary in Kaysville became upset when her child checked out the book and brought it home. The mother and her husband took their concerns to elementary school officials, according to Williams.

Continued here:
Anti-censorship group joins debate about book restricted in Davis County