Dear Facebook, please stop trying to tell me which stories are important to me. You will never know, because there is no way to create an accurate algorithm for it and there never will be. So take your “highlighted stories” and put them in your fail file. That is all.

This created a surprising amount of interaction with my FB friends.  I figured that I wasn’t alone in my distaste for Facebook’s recently implemented “highlighted stories” function, which is an updated (?) version of the old “top stories” function.  But I was taken aback by the amount of “dittos” I got.

I know, I know.  Facebook is free, and still quite useful, so why complain about it?  For one thing, it’s just my nature to want things to work well, and to comment on what i see.  Especially when they seem misguided, like this one.  It’s great that algorithms can steer music fans to new artists that display similarities to their favorites, or match web searches with relevant websites.  Not that either of those things is anywhere close to perfect.

It’s another thing altogether to create an algorithm that tries to anticipate which Facebook Friends I want to interact with the most, even if it’s based on what I’ve done previously.  A good example as to why this may not work–I might comment on someone’s post even if I don’t know them well, because that particular post was intriguing.  That doesn’t mean that person’s status updates should be highlighted forevermore.  Another one–I might comment on a post because another friend commented on it, and I may be responding more to the commenter than the original post.  I don’t see how the algorithm can detect the difference, and based on what shows up in my highlighted stream, it certainly does not appear to be a good predictor of anything.  I could even live with this more easily if users could set their preferences to hide the highlighted stories stream on an ongoing basis.  You can flip it to “recent stories” temporarily but it always seems to change back the next day.

Not to belabor this whole point.  Facebook does what they do, and we can either like it, make peace with it, or leave.  However, it brings up a larger point.  Is this the kind of attitude we take with our customers, without realizing it?  Do you put your prospects in a “love it or leave it” quandary?  Do we dictate the terms of our relationships without considering whether they benefit our customers?

In writing the title of this post, I felt like Bart Simpson, getting ready to write this on the blackboard over and over, until it fully sinks in.

I’ll be pondering this over the holidays.  But we’ll do more than ponder.  We’ll try to get our customers to tell us how we can avoid this mistake.  As should we all.

Image via Wikipedia

According to a new study released by Aptiquant, Internet Explorer users scored lower than average on an online IQ test, while Chrome, Firefox and Safari users tended to be slightly above average.  The highest scoring users were those who used the Camino, Opera, and IE with Chrome Frame browsers.

This got us to thinking.  Generally your customers will never know, or care, what browser you use, so if the above is true, it does not really put you in a bad light except possibly in your own office or household.  But there is a related thing that could do that.

Awhile back there was an article on CNN about email addresses. Seems that people’s opinion of you  depends on what email address you use.

The worst one:  AOL.com.  Not far behind are Yahoo, Hotmail and some others.  Gmail was tops in the public email provider category, topped only by what do you think?

Right.  You @your domain.com.

That is absolutely, positively the only email address you should use for business.  Use any of the public email addresses, including Gmail, and the web savvy population will tend to take you less seriously as a business person.  The worst part:  you’ll never know what it costs you, because nobody will tell you that they’re avoiding doing business with you because of your email address.

There is an easy fix for this.  Some business people have a domain/web site and just have not set up their domain-based email address.  In some cases, you may have to pay an extra hosting fee, but most of the time, all you have to do is the setup.

If you don’t have a domain or web site, the solution is almost as easy.  While the very best solution is to spring for a new website with emails, it’s not in everyone’s budget (and yes, you also lose business when prospects cannot find your website).

The good news: you can register a domain for about $10/year and Keywerx will set up and host your email for just $69/year.

Interested?  Let us know how we can help.

Image via CrunchBase

Google Plus is up and running.  As of last week, there were over 20 million users worldwide, despite the fact that Google is (sort of) rationing invitations.

Our take:  Google Plus is a brand new social network.  Most of the people on it are early adopters who are trying to figure out its capabilities.  Business accounts are not yet available.  Google Plus may turn out to be important, but it will have little impact until a lot of people start ditching Facebook.  That hasn’t happened yet and probably won’t for months if not years.  Some think the ultimate purpose for Google is to have access to a large part of the social networking stream for search purposes—since Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can protect its content from Google if they want to.

Impact on your business:  None yet, but you might want to get an account and check it out for yourself.  Contact us for an invitation.

Spotify is a streaming music service that is popular outside of the US but just launched in this country.  It is growing quickly but like Google Plus, is managing invitations for its free version.  Paid subscriptions at $4.99 or $9.99/month are available with premium features and no advertising.

Our take:  Perhaps the simplest and best way to listen to a song of your choosing online, when you want to hear it.  Search the vast library and you will be surprised if you cannot find what you’re looking for.  No downloading, but think about it:  if you can listen to a song any time you want, you might not need to download it.

Impact on your business:  Improves your online listening experience, which might well improve your day.  Also, signing up allows Spotify to grab your computer’s music library for distribution to others, so don’t be shocked if you find your most obscure favorites on Spotify.  They might have come from you!  Contact us for an invitation.

LinkedIn has just launched a one-button “apply for a job” feature.  The “Apply with LinkedIn” button functions somewhat like the Facebook Like button and can be embedded into a company’s website.  Essentially the user can submit their LinkedIn profile to a job application, no cover letter included.  Once the application is submitted, the user can ask for referrals from individuals they are connected to via LinkedIn.

Our take:  Intriguing feature that will make application simpler and perhaps more modern than the traditional resume.

Impact on your business:  Easy to implement on your website and something to consider next time you have job openings.

Last week, as we were working on setting up the framework for a new client’s website, we discovered something kind of unexpected in 2011:  a local cybersquatter.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s defined by www.cybersquatting.com, a legal resource on the subject, as “the bad faith registration of a domain name containing another person’s brand or trademark in a domain name.”  Often, the domain is made available for sale to the brand owner at an inflated price, or the squatter puts up a bare bones site full of advertising which attempts to profit off of misdirected traffic.

Back in the “day”, the domain registration game was a a wild west land grab.  Smart people made a lot of money buying and selling domains, even sometimes inadvertently.  A close friend of mine profited handsomely when his personal last-name domain that he purchased in the mid 1990′s was highly coveted by a Canadian company that shared his name.

This was all before search gained the foothold it has today.  While a domain name is still important–even critical, sometimes–to a businesses success, there are usually alternatives.  More significant is that a vital and relevant website be placed at the domain of choice.  From there, the search engines usually do a pretty good job.

So what happened here?  Our client has been in business for a year or so and his business features a branded truck that is seen all over town.  As is often the case with new businesses, he has waited a bit to launch a website.  Now that he’s ready, the most logical domain name was registered back in November 2010 by a local entity which currently owns 938 other domains.  A visit to the site of the domain name in question finds the domain name ‘available for sale’.  Nice.

Is this legal?  Like so many questions of law, it depends.  If a brand is not trademarked, a cybersquatter has a lot more running room than if a trademark exists.  However, most start-ups do not make the effort to trademark their names, and many times such initiatives are unsuccessful anyway, due to existing conflicts.

The injured party can appeal to ICANN, the not-for-profit entity that manages the domain registration process.  They can also send cease and desist letters.  But those are after-the-fact remedies and may or may not work.

What surprised us was that someone here in Indianapolis was picking off relatively long domain names with very specific utility.  In other words, if our client ain’t buying, probably no one would.

Our client did select a different domain name and he’s fine with that for now.  We’ll see if we can shake the other one loose.

Meantime, advice for business owners:  look up your desired domain name as soon as you name your business.  In fact we recommend using domain availibility as part of  determining your company name.  Then, once the business name has been finalized, purchase the one or two domains that you want, even if you don’t plan to put up a website for awhile.  Most domains run less than $10 per year, and  you’ll be ready with the right name when the time comes.

Need help with this?  Just let us know.

In 2010, it should not be happening, but it is.  Over and over.

Everywhere we go, we talk to small business owners who have purchased websites for their small business but have  no access to update them.  And they are frustrated, understandably so.  They feel trapped  after having paid significant $ for a site that isn’t as nimble or dynamic as their business.  They don’t want to pay the developer $100 to make a small change, or a lot more $ to make major updates.

In our view, this is marketing malpractice unless all parties are clear on the consequences from the outset.  Ten years ago, or even five, web development was a much more difficult process, as developers had to build sites from scratch or license expensive platforms.  Either way, it was expensive for everyone.

Today, much of the heavy lifting is already done.  There is WordPress.  Joomla.  Drupal. Dot Net Nuke. Each is free, or nearly so, freeing the developer from the time consuming platform building process and thereby allowing the focus to be on design, functionality and search engine friendliness.  Each of these platforms also offer an administrative back end so that the site owner can do their own thing–add or change text, photos, even add and delete pages.  In industry parlance, it’s known as a Content Management System, or “CMS”.

There are also proprietary or  licensed platforms that–while they typically are more expensive and often require pricey hosting plans–at least provide the site owner to update some text and other content.  The downside, in addition to the budgetary impact, is that they are not usually portable–the site owner is pretty much tied to the developer for major updates, redesign, and reworking.  Plus the sites can’t easily be moved from one hosting company to another, should the client decide to part company with the developer.

At Keywerx, we develop in WordPress and to a lesser extent, Dot Net Nuke (DNN).  They aren’t the only solutions, but they are the ones we know and like.  It depends on your needs as to which we recommend.  We also provide training on how to work the administrative area so that you don’t waste a lot of time trying to figure out what to do.

If you are a small business owner planning to hire a web developer, and you are offered a site without a CMS–even if you have no plans to regularly update your site right now–run the other way.  Fast.

After moving to a new house this past week, we decided to forgo the hassles and expense of cable television (see ya Comcast). Instead, we plan to begin streaming online video, combined with Netflix.

Meantime, we’re still unpacking, buried in the multitude of things to do accompanying a move.  So we’re reliant on the newfangled digital broadcasting world that was rolled in 2009.  Argh.

Reception is awful, and we’re close to most of the signals, living on the near east side of Indianapolis.  Admittedly, we don’t have a fancy multi-directional antenna or a rooftop antenna.  But we do have two setups, one with the digital converter box and one digital television, and both with antennas.

Naturally I assumed that digital TV would be NO WORSE than the old fashioned analog signals that have been around since the 1950′s.  I could not have been more wrong.  Very few stations are received consistently.  Most signals break up and are so unstable as to be unwatchable.  Some don’t come in at all, unless the antenna is repositioned.  There is no antenna position in either setup that brings in all of the major local stations in an acceptable manner.

I wonder if our experience is common to others, but I don’t doubt that it is.  In the old days, people bought fancy antennas if they were in fringe areas (50+ miles from the station transmitters) but we are probably only ten miles from most of the transmitters.  Currently about 10% of US residents do not subscribe to cable or satellite TV.  I’m not sure how they stand it, though.

Right now, I’m thinking that federally mandated digital television is a fraud.

On Tuesday, I encountered a very potent Browser Hijack virus and I’ve spent the rest of the week trying to rescue my desktop from oblivion.  At this writing it’s running a long string of diagnostics in hopes of getting straightened out.  But that’s not the purpose of this post.

During this time my outgoing email (via Outlook) suddenly wouldn’t send.  Naturally I attributed this to the virus, but it was also happening with the laptop, which may or may not (still don’t yet) have been affected by the virus via the wireless network.

Upon doing a bit of Googling I learned that Comcast–which is my ISP–has been gradually changing its email protocol, and one of the changes is that it blocks Port 25 on your computer because apparently that port is associated with spam.  Checking, I found that indeed Port 25 was the default email port.  Switching it to Port 587 per some geek advisors fixed this problem in a heartbeat.

Wouldn’t it be nice if, when Comcast decides to make changes like this, that it provide notification to its users?

It’s fun for users and the potential benefits for location-based businesses are considerable.  What business wouldn’t want folks to push their location to the social media world?  Great opportunities for specials, incentives and other promotional ventures are definitely there.  Foursquare is cutting some big deals with national companies because of this potential.

I’m going to disclose my bias right now.  I absolutely can’t stand Foursquare.

It’s the pollution factor.  Foursquare users generate gazillions of meaningless tweets for those of us who follow them, especially on Twitter.  It’s a parade of  “I’m at Starbucks” , followed by the even more exciting “I just became mayor of Starbucks” or “I just unlocked the explorer badge at Starbucks.”

When we talk to potential new Twitter users, the preconception is this: that Twitter exists so people can tell each other where they’re hanging out and what they are having for lunch.  Narcissistic junk.

Generally, our answer has been, well, you wouldn’t want to follow people who do that.  Those people,we say, are not using social media to advantage.  Twitter’s not narcisstic if used properly.  Use social media to provide information, help solve problems, inspire, connect.  Rather quickly, most Twitter users learn to provide value and not add “noise”.

So now we have Foursquare, bringing the noise, bigtime.   Uncomfortably, many people we follow on Twitter who otherwise provide a lot of value are also messing with Foursquare.  The social media gods are pushing it.  There is a lot of trial right now.

We’re not unfollowing people who tweet their Foursquare locations, at least not yet.  But still, it’s annoying.  We hate to see Twitter undermined by a game.

There’s actually a much bigger problem with Foursquare, since by checking in and broadcasting your location, you’re also telling the world where you’re NOT.  As in, not at home.  Hello, burglars.

To graphically illustrate this issue comes a site called Please Rob Me, which picks up Foursquare tweets and offers the information to the web-o-sphere.   As if the bad guys need help.

This is a serious issue, compared to the annoyance factor of useless tweets.  It conjures up visions of “CSI-Virtual World”, a hot new show where villains hack to death hapless social media freaks each week to the sounds of mournful indie rock.  PleaseRobMe.com obviously has hit on a real caution here.

I admit it, though.  “I’m at Starbucks” is what bugs me.  And it really bugs me.

If you aren’t already clued in to Google Buzz, it’s an expanded function of Google’s popular Gmail.  Click the Buzz icon and see your friends’ posts on Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and other social sites.  But so far, I don’t see how to connect Facebook.  Nor do I see how to add the social network of your choice.  So at this point, it’s limited.

However, because Gmail has so many users (38 million unique users as of 2009, according to Mashable)  Google Buzz debuts as a huge thing, with already more users than Twitter.

The key question for me is this:  how you use Gmail.  I use it primarily as a “personal” address for things not directly related to business and I don’t think I’m alone here.  It’s an accepted best practice to use an email address from your business domain rather than a Gmail address for your business.

So my Gmail address book does not include most of my key business contacts, and since I use social media primarily for business, there’s a disconnect.  In fact, when Buzz launched, it connected me with only about a dozen people  So far, only one of these people is showing up on my Buzz stream.  Not too interesting, eh?  So for me, the net impact of Google Buzz  is not very big.

I know there are many folks using Gmail (especially Gmail for business)  as their primary business email.  Google Buzz will work well for them.   It will also work well for those who do not want to fool with the setup and ramp-up necessary to make Twitter a good experience.   Further, Google will eventually make Buzz more functional and thereby more central to users’ daily lives.

If we’ve learned one thing in the past decade, it’s to never underestimate Google.

What do you think?  What’s Google Buzz doing for you?

I am a longtime seller on eBay, specializing in collectible vinyl records.  Ebay has long been known as an online auctioneer, but they have been moving steadily away from auctions and towards fixed-price items for several years now,  partially to accommodate big retailers and partially to compete more directly with Amazon.com.

In 2003 I jumped on the relatively new eBay store bandwagon, which provided sellers an opportunity to sell fixed price items for a very small monthly fee.  At the time I think it was a penny per month with a $15.95 per month  subscription.  Low visibility compared to auctions, but search-able.  Maybe two years ago, the price jumped to 3 cents, while they introduced a more expensive fixed-price listing category that was as search-able as auction listings.  These varied in price but were typically 35 cents.  My experience with the store concept was very positive.  Rather than depend on the uncertainty of auction results, a seller could determine the appropriate selling price and wait for the buyer to come along.  Sometimes it took months, but at 3 cents per month it was worth the wait.

Now, they are essentially eliminating the store concept by merging these fixed price listings and store listings.  The price changes are tiered and complicated.  You can still pay 3 cents per listing but instead of paying $15.95 per month for the store fee, you’ll pay $299.95.  Or, you can keep your store fee at $15.95 but each listing is 20 cents per month.  In return for this massive price increase, all store items are no longer segregated from auction items.  Everything is equally search-able.  (There are several other pieces to the fee restructuring, not the least of which are eBay’s “final value fees”  but I’m going to focus on the store listing part of it.)

At the moment, though, I am staring at a whopping 667% price increase for listing items in my store.   To continue my current store strategy, I’d have to have a huge increase in sales to pay the fee increases.  All over the US there are sellers reacting similarly.

I’m trying to see  this as a learning opportunity.  So what are the lessons here?

1. Traffic is King.   eBay occupies a very large niche and owns a huge amount of traffic.  They’ll rent this traffic to you, but you have to play by their rules, or, as my dad used to say, ‘go play on the freeway’.  By achieving near-monopoly status as an online auctioneer, they can and do dictate how things work.  They can tinker and fiddle and the rest of us have to adjust.

2.  Their Business Model Dictates Your Business Model. Tens of thousands of small sellers are making a living by using eBay to deliver their customers.  It has worked well, for many, for a long time.  The problem is that you have no control over what eBay does.  They can force sellers to use Paypal, as they have.  They can tilt the playing field in favor of the buyer, as they have.  They can dictate shipping prices.  They can make the seller responsible for insuring packages.  The seller is simply forced to adapt, or move on.  Many sellers are trying to make that choice right now.  One thing is clear:  they are in charge.

3.  Size Matters. As eBay has cozied up to large online retailers, it has also placed obstacles in the way of the small seller.  This is quite apparent in this new structure.  In their heavily-spun announcement of the changes, they trumpet the opportunity for sellers to get fully search-able 3 cent listings.  Trouble is, it costs the seller $299.95 per month just to be eligible for 3 cent listings.   This won’t be a big problem for Best Buy or other retail giants who sell thousands of dollars of merchandise per day on eBay.  They’ll be able to list items for 3 cents while little folks will have to pay 20 cents.  May the best big man win.

4.  Honesty = Transparency. eBay trumpets “lowest insertion fees ever” but really this is a price increase disguised by a few cosmetic price promotions.  Depending on the individual seller’s situation, some of these changes could actually mean lower fees.  But for the rank-and-file seller, it’s another in a series of price increases and disruptions, each of which has been served up as an improvement for the benefit of the seller.  It’s pretty much consensus now that transparency is a desirable characteristic in business.  eBay is losing the PR war by being less than truthful in its communications to sellers.  They will lose a lot of sellers over this, and perhaps they will alienate enough people to open the door for a real competitor.   A lot of folks who feel abandoned by eBay are hoping that is exactly what happens.

5.  Superior Business Models Win.  And that’s what eBay is thinking when it makes things less palatable for sellers.  In the end, some sellers will stick with it, because, for many, it still beats starting your own e-commerce platform, setting up in an antique mall or starting  a brick-and-mortar retail operation. Until a viable competitor emerges, eBay is still the 900 pound gorilla.  A price increase it may be, but many of us will pay it.