New Ten Golden Rules Internet Marketing Podcast Features the ten Hottest Strategies in Internet Marketing and Christopher s. Penn

Our new Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing Podcast features a discussion with Marketing Ninja Christopher S. Penn, the Podcamps co-founder and host of the Financial Aid Podcast.

We also reviewed submissions for a new presentation I will deliver at Affiliate Summit called 'The Ten Hottest Strategies in Internet Marketing'. Here's the list, we still have time for a few great suggestions, what do you think?

1. Micro Communications
2. Reviews and Ratings
3. Customer Service is the new Marketing Department
4. Personal Branding – Online job hunting
5. Great Content
6. Everybody is Famous to 15 People
7. Free Tools!
8. Payments
9. Direct to Consumer Public Relations
10. Widgets and Open Source or Globalization??

Please comment below, or send me an email jay (at ) ten golden rules dot com (email disguised from automated spam bots :) )

Bring a Box of Kleenex and Change your life

An amazing piece on tv tonight, if you didn't see it watch the Last lecture here:

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Twitter Is My Personal Newswire

If you follow enough people on Twitter, you’ll definitely learn about what happens in the news. CNN is one of those sites that I barely have open in my browser, but you’ll find my Twitter page open. In a matter of moments, my Twitter feed was full of tweets like “Earthquake!” and “OMG, EARTHQUAKE!” and as I opened CNN.com, it was breaking news. Moments later, the keyword “Earthquake” made the front page of Twitter Search as a trending topic. As soon as an event such as an earthquake happens, it reaches masses quicker than the Associated Press. Comes to show how useful Twitter is as a personal newswire.

Can you imagine all those California twitter people under a table or standing in between a wall sending tweets?!

NASA observes the 50th anniversary of its creation

This week, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration observes the 50th anniversary of its creation. And make no mistake: There's a lot to celebrate. NASA's achievements write a glorious chapter in human history, one that's nearly impossible to overstate. Is it fair to call NASA the greatest scientific and exploratory agency ever created? It is.

It cost the United States about $40 billion to get to the moon. Even at twice the cost, that's chump change. The human race has been repaid many times over for that investment, as it has for many other NASA projects. So much of what we take for granted today is either directly or indirectly a byproduct of what used to be called space-age technology. Medicine, the military, communications, miniaturization, computerization -- all have benefited because of NASA's work.  

Source: Wired Magazine

Ex-Googler Launches Cuil (Cool) New Search Engine

Ex Google employee, Anna Patterson and her husband launched a new search engine Cuil. They are aiming to index more pages then Google and become the leader in search.
Cuil said they will go beyond traditional approaches and analyze the context of each page and the concepts behind each query so it can provide better rankings by content rather than popularity.

Google Knol Now Open For Contributions

Last December we wrote about Google Knol and now it is open for contributions. The difference between Knol and Wikipedia is that authorship is strongly encourages and every knol will be associated with an author or a group of set authors. Knol also favors multiple knolls on the same subject, allowing people to voice their opinion on a specific topic.

If there is an existing Knol on a topic and someone reading it wants to add or contribute to it, the author of that Knol can accept, reject or modify the suggested edit. A Knol can also include ads from Google Adsense, providing that author with a revenue share.

So far, I find Knol to be really easy to read and there are mostly articles about health related topics. Knol also allows you to include a biography about yourself to show your credibility in the particular subject you wrote about. This may become a great tool for businesses to be authoritative within Google about subjects that pertain to their business.

Check out Google Knol and see how you can contribute.

The official Guinness World Record for the largest number of software downloads in twenty-four hours goes to

The official Mozilla Blog has confirmation that Mozilla Firefox 3 now holds the official Guinness World Record for the largest number of software downloads in twenty-four hours. On Download Day, there were 8,002,530 downloads of Firefox 3 between 6:16pm UTC/GMT on Tuesday 17th June 2008 and 6:16pm UTC/GMT on Wednesday 17th June 2008.

It's so amazing that a couple years ago when FireFox was launched, Microsoft's Internet Explorer dominated the market with a whopping 95 percent share. Now Firefox has 18 percent of the market and Apple's Safari has another 6 percent.

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... C: wait... SD: wait...

Walmart Moves More Online

Walmart Stores is taking a chapter from Craigslist and has started to post online classified ads through Oodle.com. According to Craig Donato, CEO of Oodle.com, classified advertising generates $30 billion every year. This is a free community based resource allowing people to buy and sell local items as well as learn about job postings. Walmart is hoping this move will further keep their online customer base in touch with weekly offerings from the store and their local community.

Apple sells 1 million iPhone 3G in a weekend

Despite widespread activation problems, Apple said Monday that it sold its one millionth iPhone 3G on Sunday, just three days after the new handset launched worldwide on Friday, July 11.

"iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend," said Apple chief executive Steve Jobs. Last year, Apple managed to sell just 270,000 iPhones during the first two days. Although the Cupertino-based electronics maker did not release a three day tally for first-generation iPhone sales, it would take the company nearly two and a half months to sell its one millionth unit. "It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world," Jobs added. Unlike last year when opening weekend iPhone sales took place exclusively in the United States, this year's roll-out was helped by simultaneous launch in 20 addition countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

The new iPHONE 3G now offer a bunch of improvements like connection to the new 3G networks which is most faster than the EDGE networks, it has a GPS based on Google maps, support for Microsoft Exchange and access to the iTunes Applications store, so now you can buy or get free applications for your phone. There are cool applications for free like AIM, Facebook and AOL Radio. The applications are very limited for now but thanks the new SDK we will see a bunch of interesting new apps in the near future. This revolutionary phone is repaving the mobile industry to a next level.

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... C: wait... SD: wait...

Website Launch Checklist

Whether you're launching a website for the first time or going through a redesign, there's some things you should do for a site launch:

• Setup 301 Redirects - only applies to a website redesign and ensures that the search engines know where the old pages are moving to. The process involved in setting up a 301 redirect is dependent on whether you have a Apache or IIS (Windows) server.
• Setup a Custom 404 Page - When you're going through a site redesign, it's a smart tactic to use a custom 404 page to catch any visitors that your 301 redirects missed. Just like a 301 redirect, you'll either need to setup your custom 404 on your Apache or IIS server. If you're not sure what to put on your custom 404 page, check out Apple.com. They have a great example of a custom 404 page.
• Check for Broken Links - make sure that all the links on your site are working. You can use a link checker to find any broken links.
• Setup an XML Site Map - will provide an easy way for search engines crawl the pages on your website. Google offers a simple XML sitemap generator. Then register at Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer and submit your XML sitemap. After verifying your website, both search engines can use your XML sitemap as a guide to crawl your website.
• Setup Analytics - make sure that you're tracking your visitors from day one. If you're already using analytics on the old website, make sure that during the transition the code gets placed on the new site. If you don't have any analytics, sign up for Google Analytics.

And don't forget, once the website is launched, you're going to want to launch your internet marketing campaign...but that's a checklist for another day.

Internet Latin America Market

There are around 122 millions of Internet users in Latin America, this number represents 9.3% of the total of the 100% users in the World. Brazil is the number one with 42.5 millions of users follow by Mexico with 23 millions of users and Argentina in the third place with 16 millions of users. This is a huge market which have been growth 590% from 2000-2007. Brazil, Mexico and Argentina are in the top 20 countries with most Internet users in the World.

This rapidly expanding audience, represents a sizable market opportunity for Internet companies choosing to focus their efforts on this region. But there are lot of challenges like more computer access to the mass, government and electronic payment methods restrictions, broadband access, etc.

According with Gonzalo Alonso, Google's general manager for Spanish-speaking Latin America Latin America is a complex ecosystem, Alonso said. Besides getting more users online, there are four main challenges to growth in online marketing in general, and search marketing specifically:

• Payment methods: Credit card penetration is low, and the banking system is not ready to face the challenges presented online.
• E-commerce: While certain areas are growing faster than others, the Latin American market in general needs more e-commerce players.
• Building Web sites: Latin American businesses need to be educated about basic SEO, so that they can build sites that Google and other search engines can index. 4. Government participation: Google and other Internet companies want to help close the Internet gap, with money and resources, but they need the governments to step up and create programs and infrastructure for these companies to support.

Going Cow Tipping?

Chick-fil-A is preparing for their 4th annual "Cow Tipping" event on July 11th, don't worry, no cows will be harmed for this one. They are offering a free chicken meal for those who are brave enough to dress up like a cow for lunch.

The meal includes an entree of choice, a side item and a beverage. Customers partially dressed in cow attire, such as a cow-spotted scarf, will receive a complimentary entree.

But What About Your Website?

As usual, Mitch Joel has inspired me to write a blog post. The man never ceases to amaze me with his simple yet profound gems. Yesterday he talked about being inspired to remember that it all begins and ends with the website after listening to Bryan Eisenberg's keynote presentation at Search Engine Strategies in Toronto.

Internet marketers are very busy trying to stay abreast of the latest trends, new ideas and just plain doing our jobs – and we can tend to lose focus on the destination. As Mitch points out, it isn't going to matter how great your PPC campaign, blog post or social media idea is if when the visitor is delivered to the website, they have no idea what to do or can't do what they want to do.

So, remember, focus on the website first. Ask yourself these questions: can visitors easily understand and navigate my website? Are they enabled, and even persuaded to take action? Have I made my website performance based, transactional, trackable and usable? And is my website search engine friendly so visitors can find it?

If you answered no to any of these questions, it's definitely time to review your website. After all, as Mitch notes, it's not only the destination for your online marketing – it's often the first point of contact for your customers.

Optimizing Your eCommerce Product Pages

Search Engine Land featured a post this week about optimizing an eCommerce product detail page, using a great, easy to understand visual, pointing out elements you should optimize.

I found these tips really easy to understand, but there are some other tips that one should consider when optimizing a product detail page.

If possible, try to have URLs without any variables, parameters or session IDs, but with keywords that describe that particular product. Popular shopping cart software come search engine friendly or includes search engine friendly plugins, so there are ways to do this.

Make sure product pages have unique title tags, meta description and keyword tags, as well as unique product descriptions to avoid duplicate content penalties in the search engines. Unique product descriptions are important also if there are competitors selling the same products you are.

Make sure you also have a sitemap that includes all your product categories, and even brand names. That way, the search engines are aware of any new pages that are generated and can crawl and index them.

Another way to get your products exposure in the search engine is to sign up for Google Base, which is a way to submit the products you sell and will show up in Google Product Search as well as main Google search. It’s free, and you can add attributes describing your content so it will be searchable.

A very sad moment...

I bought gas today and reached a new sad milestone on the pump...