What's all the fuss about the 'Cloud'?

I live in a techie bubble and you (my clients) know that, but the rest of the world (my clients and their clients) don't live my my Internet bubble.  Most people live in a normal world where the Internet and also it's intricacies probably make up less than 5% of their time.  This is probably partly why I build website for other techie companies.  Even they may not use the internet that much.

The reason for this article is that I forget to bring key important topics to your attention. Some of the biggest benefits, in saving money, being more efficient and more professional... keeping up with the times and making your business function better, faster and more profitable.

In today's case, have I explained the 'Cloud' to you - no not the thing you see in the sky when Rain is imminent, but the much more techie thing that you might have read about in the news paper or noticed your iPhone hassling you about.  So what is it?

The 'Cloud' is a technology that allows a vast network of computers to join up and form one even bigger computer.  In it's simplest form think of it this way... if one computer breaks you won't notice because dozens of others will take it's place.

Now in case you're thinking I'm going to start getting technical - I'm not, instead I am just going to touch on a few things for you:

• Your computer - you need a new one every few years, that's normal and it's not going to change much in the future, you'll always want a new computer and get the latest whatever's on offer, but what about all your stuff.  Over the years you are bound to have lost stuff.  Photos, musics, work documents.  The 'Cloud' ends all this... if all your stuff is in the 'Cloud' - even as computers change your stuff remains there.
  
• Mobile Phones - going back to the start of this Post - the truth is, though you might not be aware of it, your iPhone, Smartphone or indeed any old phone is probably accessing the Internet far more than you realise, annoying marketing SMS's, playing a game, updating the phones software - it's all done through the Internet.  Now consider how much time you spend with the phone and compare to your computer - the difference is not much.  The 'Cloud' means that your stuff - as I keep calling it - is always available.  Need a number, want to see an email, look at a document, play a song.  The 'Cloud' makes that happen.
  
• Security - I'm constantly bashed by this and most of us simply don't care or don't care enough... A thief comes along, raids your house... he steals the telly, hifi and maybe a mobile (plus whatever else)... either which way you look at it, the most galling thing he's done is invade your personal space... the second most galling thing he's done is nick your digital photo collection, or movie collection... The 'Cloud' negates this problem completely and in fact can help track down your thief.  All your stuff is still available to you and while it's a pain to buy a new TV your movie collection is fully retrievable.

I'm not going to lie to you - things are not quite so straightforward and decisions are required as to how it all works, but you can see the benefits to normal people, people that don't understand computers, people that prefer to be out doing sport, making things and being down the pub rather than like me sat in front of my computer (you get the gist).

Lastly where do you start - well follow this Blog - I'm always banging on about some good idea or other.  Otherwise think to yourself - what stuff on your computer is valuable to you, work, photos, music, movies, etc... and then drop me a comment (below) and I'll reply with a few suggestions.

The End of Google's 'Do No Evil' Mantra

In a few days Google will change all it's 64 privacy policies into a single big one. I am no expert in the legal affairs of these giant corporation, but these are my comments for what they are worth.

We as Google users, whether we are using Search, Gmail, or any of Google plethora of services, we actually have very little choice.  If we want to carry on benefiting from Google, they we have to agree.  If we do not agree, we will not get the full benefit of Google. It's pretty black and white.

So what do you do if you don't agree with this.  And what's it all about anyway.

Google's made no secret they have stated that the purpose of a single privacy policy is to make things easier for us, we can use all Google's services without having to agree to any extra demands on our Data (we've already agreed to give that away).  Secondly, Google have stated that they plan to share our data across their services. If we're searching for a digital camera to buy, then we might want to see photos of it, or perhaps get emailed about digital cameras.  Certainly we would be announcing the fact we're interested in a digital camera to our connections on Google.

So Google's plan is use our data to benefit ourselves and our friends, this of course appeals to advertisers because Google will share some of our data with them too... (That digital camera).  But it does raise massive questions about intrusive Google plans to be.

What can you do - very little in my opinion... sign up and don't worry about it.  If you want to carry on using Gmail, Google Apps, Blogger, Picasa you'll have to agree to it anyway.  So live with it.

But the caveat is this... support those that are fighting your corner.  There is a growing industry of user-awareness groups that are examining every angle of these privacy policies, the same goes for all the Mega Corporations, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Amazon and so on.  These user-awareness groups set out to protect our rights and ensure that the Googles of the world don't actually take over our lives.

Spare some time for these people, because they need our support, the WikiLeaks, Anonymous, and other so called 'cyber-terrorists' might actually be on our side.

I do now believe that Google's Mantra to 'Do No Evil' is now officially dead, Eric Schmidt's reorganisation of the Google top management in the middle of 2011 is not truly coming to light, Google has hugely high aspirations and it would appear there is little we can do to stop them.

Keeping Up -How to stay on top of things

The idea of 'keeping on top of things' is an incredibly important concept in terms of the Internet.  I cannot stress it enough.  Once you've started a project you just have to keep going and going and going.

It's a flaw in the Internet or perhaps is a flaw in Google's algorithms, if you want to stay on top you have to keep on top of things.  This is both urgent and all to often under estimated.

Some examples:

• Blogging - I did a series of articles between mid December (6) and January (11) - never has my Blog been more popular, 1500 visitors in January.  Having relaxed a bit in February, I've lost a third of that traffic.
  
  Client Haxnicks - I can identify a consistent trend between Sales and Blogging, the more blogging the more sales we get - it's as simple as that.
  
  
• Social Media - The new measurement for good or bad in Social Media is called Influence. How influential you are matters, when I do lots of Tweeting and Facebook updates - it is noticeable that my Twitter Followers expand, people notice, maybe just a few, but they notice, but if I relax and take a few days off.  Pow, I lose that influence.
  
  Client X - We did a huge SMO campaign around September-November - plenty of interaction and activity generating decent buzz - now that it's stopped the activity has been reduced massively.  The core component for this client was Sales - these did not materialise in the form required. But had things been kept going, the question is what would have happened.
  
  
• SEO - The two core activities that are needed to keep on top are article submissions and link building, these are ongoing month after month jobs, - stop and after just a month or two you can see the results as you drop down the search engines.
  
  Client Skyschool UK - We've worked on and off with Skyschool regularly boosting their SEO, we drive it up the Google rankings then pause, it falls and the client returns for a bit more SEO.  It's fine to do this in a patchy on/off way, but it would be better to just keep going.

So how do you 'keep on top of things'.  The core is the Marketing Plan, I now seen others writing about this very subject.  If you have even a basic Marketing Plan, then you have something to refer to.  It's a good base to work from.  Set your goals, perhaps a timeline and work to that.

For myself I also set reminder, or tasks, use any software you like, a Calendar, Task Tool, Outlook, it does not matter, so long as it sends you an email about doing something.  Then leave that email in your Inbox until you've done something.

That's exactly how I write this Blog, I set myself a reminder task for 2 weeks post my last article.  That means I have a annoying email in my Inbox that's reminding me to write something.

Task lists and Reminders are the key method for 'keeping on top of things'.  They make you do it and you have to persevere.

The next most important part is to allocate a time period, it can be as little as 10 minutes, or a full hour.  But set yourself a minimum and then allow yourself to overshoot.  It should be daily as well.  Time is what most people lack, so you have to set yourself time and then make good use of it.

Now before I get off my high horse, I'd like to put out that my own marketing is a shambles... all I am trying to do is make clients consider their own positions and to see what may or may not work for them.  If you have ideas that are simple to implement and easy to stay on top, then I'm all ears.  Let me know, because there has to be a way to make this easy.

Copyright Law is the future for Piracy

Few things get me more uptight than Piracy and the invasion of our freedoms by the authorities.  Recently we've  had two laws attempt to pass the the US Congress, 20+ Euro countries have signed up to some EU law, we've a cookie law on it's way, a UK student is being extradited under US Terrorism laws for creating a dodgy website and we've closed down a quasi New Zealand/German/Indonesian website for running 14% of the Internet.

All in the name of stopping piracy.  When will it stop and how many of our freedoms have to go before Governments start taxing our internet use to pay for all the laws we're creating.

The truth is the horse has left the stable and no amount of door closing is going to induce it to return... The Internet is changing the world before our very eyes and new ideas need to be looked at.

My idea (as yet I've not read anything about this) - my idea - is that Copyright Law need to be looked at in much greater detail and updated accordingly.  Who says spending 30 minutes writing a best selling song should earn you millions.  Sometimes it can take a musician 30 years to write that magical song.  Authors, Screen Writers, Actors, all creative people spend a lot of time climbing to the top - all most all of it is unrewarded and as any artist will tell you for every success story there are plenty of artist who work all their lives unrewarded.

In what other walks of life does the situation exist whereby you slave day in day out for often years and then in five minutes you get your break and that's it, you're on the front cover of every magazine.

No - in almost every other profession you work diligently earning as you go a suitable sum for your endeavours and always towards an incrementally larger goal.  You don't walk into being the CEO of a multi-national company - you work your whole life towards.

The difference is you're paid all the way up to the top... Not so in an artist profession, not so in an actor career where the top paid success stories vastly out weigh the slave labour at the bottom.

All of this hinges on one thing alone - Copyright Law - the right of the individual to be paid for their conceptual idea ever after.  And in huge amounts.

Now I hear a few defences of the current situation - but it's no good - the Steve Jobs or James Dyson's worked hard - but still they were grossly over-paid for their contribution to humanity.

What we need is a new system that pays our copyright holders more fairly (rewarding the creators themselves and not those around them) - we need a system that pays out over time, small amounts to encourage these geniuses to produce more good ideas and we need those surrounding copyright holders to be severely curtailed in their rights to bits of the pie.

Only then will the costs of the material be reduced to an acceptable level that people will be prepared to pay - And when you manage to get things down to that level then and only then will you succeed in combating piracy.  You have to make it meaningless for the pirate to bother.

I reckon a track of music should cost no more than 4p, a digital book less than 20p, a photograph pennies.

So how does this affect you - ask yourself what action you would take if someone copied your idea, song, story... would it matter, do you feel honoured, put out - I suspect you'll only ever feel miffed is that someone made money out of your idea - and that's not a very noble thought.

Google Adwords Revisited

I am going to write this even though I'm on shaky ground with the flurry of changes Google brings us this winter.

I have compiled data on clients performance on Google Adwords over the last 4 years and two things I have known are happening have been proven:

1) The cost of Google Adwords is going up
There is no doubt in my mind that the cost per click is being driven  upwards - this is what Google wants obviously and there are numerous factors contributing to it.

• Google's own desire to get more out of us
• Increased competition between advertisers
• Google 'quality score' through which they charge more if an advert is deemed unsuitable.

What this means for us advertisers is simple - we're paying either more money for the same number of clicks or the same money for fewer clicks.

Example (the data is real):
Client A in 2008 was operating a budget of £100 per month and getting 590 clicks.  In 2011 this same budget brought them just 434 clicks - a drop of 35%.

You easily say that's actually a price hike of 35% in four years... wow.

2) The cost of Conversions is going down.

The truth is clicks don't matter - what matters is the cost of Conversions - getting someone to do want you want them to do on your website - be that buying something, enquiring about something, requesting something. Google Adwords in this area is proving remarkably resilient.  But only if you know what you're doing.

• Big updates in Google Adwords make it much more complicated to use and get the most from
• Your keywords and Adverts matter more than ever - they are what drive conversions
• Your website landing pages have to match a users expectations to increase the likelihood of a Conversion

The bottom line is the Conversion matter and it is the cost of conversions that counts.

Example (the data is real):

Client B in 2008 was operating a £300 monthly budget and we managed to get 1046 'Conversions' in 12 months.  In 2011 that number went up to 2043... a 49% rise in Conversions - this lead to a reduction is cost per conversion of 57% - from £1.76 to £1.02 per conversion.

For this client Google Adwords has been a success story - their website and budget remained virtually the same through out the period and the Advertising has paid off again and again.

Another Client C has had a Budget of about £300 per month and has seen the cost of clicks rise from £0.52 to £0.72 (38%) - but their cost of conversion has fallen from £90.69 to £49.42 (down 54%).  So even though Google costs more - it's very much worth it because the results are costing less.

This all matters to you - because it means Google Adwords is still have very effect way to advertise.  At the moment Google are getting bad press and people are thinking about leaving the system, perhaps spending more on SEO and other techniques to get their websites up on the search engines.  But Google Adwords still offers one of the fastest and most cost effective ways to advertise on the web.

My maxine holds true - if you are in any doubt about any advertising service compare it to Google Adwords and decide which one your money would be better spent on - Google Adwords wins every time in my book.