Evidently Mark Zuckerburg's Facebook Page Can Be Hacked

Recent news of today in the Washington Post reveals what happened in the Facebook world by an unemployed web developer.

I guess we better watch those web developers. Maybe Zuckerburg will hire this guy since he knows how to hack his Facebook page.



An unemployed Palestinian developer named Khalil Shreateh tried several times to report a bug to Facebook’s security team. When no one got back to him, he took the (dubiously) logical next step: exploited the bug to leave a public comment on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s wall.

“First sorry for breaking your privacy and post to your wall,” an apparent screenshot of the hack reads. “I has [sic] no other choice to make after all the reports i sent to Facebook team.”

The break-in, detailed on Shreateh’s blog (and in several agitated posts from Facebook developers on Hacker News), has been more than a little embarrassing for Facebook.

But it’s not exactly newsworthy that Shreateh found a bug — that happens all the time. In fact, Facebook runs a program that encourages white hat hackers to find and report bugs in Facebook infrastructure in exchange for a cash reward. What is unusual is that Facebook didn’t respond to Shreateh’s initial reports about the bug, and that Shreateh then exploited it in violation of Facebook’s policies for white hat hackers.

“The more important issue here is with how the bug was demonstrated using the accounts of real people without their permission,” insisted Matt Jones, a Facebook software engineer, on the forum Hacker News. “Exploiting bugs to impact real users is not acceptable behavior for a white hat.”

So why didn’t Facebook respond right away to Shreateh’s reports? Judging by the e-mail threads with Facebook’s security team that Shreateh posted on his blog, it looks like his bug was lost — iterally — in translation. Shreateh’s English is a little shaky, and the Facebook developer he corresponded with doesn’t seem to understand the report:

Rhe vulnerability allow’s facebook users to share posts to non friends facebook users , i made a post to sarah.goodin timeline and i got success post … of course you may cant see the link because sarah’s timeline friends posts shares only with her friends , you need to be a friend of her to see that post or you can use your own authority .

“I am sorry this is not a bug,” a Facebook employee reportedly fired back.
On Hacker News, Jones explains that they often get reports from “people whose English isn’t great,” and that usually “it’s something we work with just fine.” According to Facebook’s own reports, the company relies heavily on international white hat hackers to keep its system secure — of the 329 legitimate bugs reported by white hats in the past two years, more than 260 came from outside the U.S.

The network joins several other tech companies, including Google, Microsoft, PayPal and Mozilla, that pay bounties to white hat hackers and rely on them to help keep systems secure.
Shreateh reports he will not, however, receive a bounty for his work — per an e-mail from Facebook, he violated the terms of the program when he hacked Zuckerberg’s account. That has enraged some in the security community, who argue Shreateh exposed an important vulnerability in good faith, using the only means available. The bug has since been fixed, according to Jones’s Hacker News post.
“I can talk hours and hours about facebook security team and their secure style, that may take them down by hackers, that mean iam [sic] not a bad hacker and i never been,” Shreateh posted on his Facebook Sunday night. His current Facebook avatar is a photo of Edward Snowden. “You should know that iam not a hacker.”
 https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1773196631461301668#editor/target=post;postID=7059459557628954228

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Cloudwords Announces Easier Integrations Capabilities in the Developer Center

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 15, 2013) - Cloudwords, the market-leading cloud-based translation management application, today announced the launch of the CloudwordsDeveloper Center, a new developer-centric destination designed to enable easy integration between content management systems (CMS) and the Cloudwords platform. To meet the ever-increasing demand for localized content, Cloudwords is providing new integration capabilities to accelerate the process of multilingual content management by enabling developers to integrate with all major CMS platforms, including Drupal, Adobe CQ, Microsoft Sharepoint, Oracle UCM, and SiteCore, among others.

The Cloudwords Translation Management Automation solution helps companies expand their global presence faster, more easily and with enterprise-class quality. With today's announcement, Cloudwords becomes the most developer-friendly cloud-based translation management solution geared specifically for the enterprise.

"Cloudwords continues to deliver innovations that enable our customers to stay one step ahead when it comes to going to market globally. The Cloudwords Developer Center underscores our commitment to making it even easier and faster for enterprises to manage large amounts of content that need to be translated. By simplifying the integration process behind the scenes, customers can get up and running in the Cloudwords platform even faster, and take advantage of the simplicity of moving content in and out of critical content systems, ultimately delivering increased ROI," said Scott Yancey, CEO and Co-founder of Cloudwords.

The Cloudwords Developer Center features the Cloudwords Sandbox, a unique environment that provides developers a fully automated integration experience. The Cloudwords Sandbox allows developers to quickly build and test Cloudwords integrations with any content system their business users rely on. A simulated end-to-end translation management experience, automated by a translation vendor "robot," means developers can experience the power of Cloudwords in a low-risk environment. Having the ability to test an integration within an environment that mirrors the actual Cloudwords production account allows developers to completely prepare for enterprise roll-out.

The Cloudwords Development Center also includes pre-built integrations for Drupal, Adobe CQ, and others, as well as complete documentation for the company's acclaimed REST-based API, and Software Development Kits (SDKs) for Java, .net, and PHP.

"The ability for companies to easily and efficiently localize their marketing content is mission critical in today's global economy. But this critical enterprise content is locked away inside ungainly content management systems. By leveraging CMS integration capabilities with their translation management application, organizations can finally achieve optimal localization efficiency. If companies aren't streamlining their localization process, they will fall behind their competition when it comes to reaching international markets," said Robinson Kelly, CEO and Co-founder of Clay Tablet Technologies.

"Cloudwords allows ADInstruments to easily integrate our Drupal website with their localization management platform so we can streamline the ongoing process of translating our website content. By integrating with Cloudwords, our content is uploaded, translated and approved within a significantly shorter time frame than the traditional 'cut and paste' approach. Now, we rely on Cloudwords to centralize all our multilingual assets and work with multiple translation vendors to localize content in 13 languages," said Ina Kinski, Hardware and Tools Coordinator at ADInstruments, responsible for website implementation.

Cloudwords' complete cloud-based translation management solution helps companies go global faster by enabling companies to manage the complexity of translation projects from creation to vendor selection to project and billing management. The Cloudwords platform offers easy-to-use, cloud-based project management capabilities so users spend less time manually managing localization projects and complete projects faster.

To learn more about Cloudwords' integration capabilities and the Cloudwords Developer Center, please visit http://developer.cloudwords.com/.

About Cloudwords
Cloudwords revolutionizes the way global companies think about their multilingual content strategy and execution. Through an intuitive customer-centric interface and a secure cloud infrastructure, Cloudwords delivers an application for business users to accelerate their translation process, manage vendors, and leverage data. Created by veterans of the translation industry and high-tech leaders from Salesforce.com, the company is backed by Storm Ventures and Cloud visionaries such as Marc Benioff. For more information on Cloudwords, please visit Cloudwords.com or join the global conversation on Twitter@cloudwordsinc.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/cloudwords-announces-faster-easier-integration-capabilities-with-new-cloudwords-developer-1821247.htm

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Mobile Developers Will Have a Smile on Their Face With the New Service From AMAZON

pcworld

Amazon web services is now offering mobile developers cross-platform push notifications. Why would developers benefit from this service?

                                                  voxville
                                                          

Amazon pitches Simple Notification Service with Mobile Push as an easier way for developers to add notifications than previously has been possible. Using one API, developers can send notifications to iOS and Android-based devices, including Amazon's own Kindle Fire tablets.

Previously, adding push notifications at a large scale on multiple platforms has been complicated for developers, according to Amazon. That's because each smartphone OS has a different service that delivers notifications. So to support multiple mobile platforms, developers must integrate with each platform, which introduces operational complexity and cost, Amazon said.

Mobile Push is compatible with Amazon's own Device Messaging platform as well as Apple's Push Notification Service and Cloud Messaging from Google. Notification messages sent to a mobile endpoint can appear as message alerts, badge updates, or even sound alerts.

The service can send messages to individual users on specific devices or broadcast identical messages to many subscribers at once. For developers who find themselves with a hit app on their hands, it can scale from a few notifications a day to hundreds of millions, according to Amazon.

Developers can send up to 1 million notifications each month for free. After that, customers pay 50 cents for every million messages published, and 50 cents for every million messages delivered.

 

Mobile Push is built into the existing Simple Notification Service, which is still labelled as a beta and already lets developers send notifications to their users via SMS text message and email.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9241598/Amazon_offers_mobile_developers_cross_platform_push_notifications

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Deep Blue Has Been Awarded One of the Best Responsive Website Design Firms

DeepBlue has taken the second place award on 10 Best Design’s list of Best Responsive Web Design Companies. Their use of images, bright color palettes and complex design elements help them stand out in a sea of pre-made templates and cookie-cutter websites. Established in 1999, DeepBlue is a grandfather of modern website design companies yet manages to remain the leader of the pack even as younger firms are born. Standing the test of time, DeepBlue has adapted to each fickle whim technology has thrown at them over the last fourteen years and continues to be an example for longevity in one of the most fast-paced industries on Earth. In that time they have helped over 1000 customers produce the perfect web design for the their product or service, created of 300 e-commerce sites, and completed over twenty-five responsive sites. Based out of both Los Angeles and Atlanta, the DeepBlue team is made up of thinkers, innovators, creatives, strategists, techno-geeks and fanboys who are dedicated to creating memorable brands and high impact websites that stay with the viewer long after the web browser has been closed. Their own website is complex and exhibits animation like features that give users a unique viewing experience. A masterpiece of dozens of minute details and large graphic pieces working together to beget a single vision, their site works as its own portfolio, showing a variety of different options without being messy or over the top. The mobile site is just as impactful despite the fact that many of the details have been toned-down and placed in the background to enhance readability on the smaller screen of a tablet or smart phone. In essence, they build responsive sites that manage to keep their quirks and branding elements regardless of the user’s point of access. Their portfolio is a living, breathing creature full of websites made not only to survive a new format, but to thrive in their new environment. Watching their work morph from the standard website to the responsive mobile website is a treat. Each element is amended to fit the intended platform and keep the company’s individual branding goals in mind. DeepBlue’s unique view of responsive web design has not gone unnoticed. The company has caught the eye of many national and multi-national companies including Mazda, Miramax Films, the United States Courts and even NASA. They’ve been awarded a Webby award and an Addy award. They have also been featured in both Forbes magazine and on CNN. DeepBlue has created a legacy of slick, modern, fun work that integrates all the right elements to make a website unforgettable to consumers. Unlike many companies that have surpassed the ten-year mark, DeepBlue continues to be a leader in pushing the envelope and creating formerly unseen solutions to complicated questions. The company regenerates constantly and learns how to not only keep up with new-fangled companies, but create new technologies and techniques before anyone else. Like a fine wine, DeepBlue’s web design just continues to improve. For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/10-best-design/responsive-web-design/prweb11016848.htm

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Web Developers Are Happy Today To Hear the News of Apple Restores Website Outage

Can you imagine that Apple,the tech giant, had an outage with the their software developer's website?  On Saturday the portal which is essential for developers was back online after 23 days.

                                                                  Business Insider







Apple sent out an email to all registered developers, apologizing for the service outage.

The final restoration comes five days after Apple announced plans to have the portal at full capacity by the end of the week.

Developers now can check the status page via a link on the homepage to confirm that all functions essential for software development are back online.

According to the email sent to developers, to make up for the prolonged outage of some of the services, Apple will extend all memberships, which are usually for a year, by one month.

Apple’s software developer’s website, which also hosts its iOS and OS X beta downloads, went down on July 18 and a few days after, the company acknowledged that there had been a security breach.

No sensitive personal information was accessed, Apple said at the time, but it could not rule out that the intruders had gained access to developers’ names and mailing and email addresses.

The outage caused outrage in the developer community, for many of them were unable to enable new devices to run pre-release versions of Apple's software or test out new apps.

The downtime also came as Apple pushed developers to test and create software for upcoming versions of iOS and Mac OS X, both of which are expected this fall.

Apple began to bring back many key services on July 26, after more than a week of downtime. Essential services for software development on iOS, Mac, and Safari platform, were given the priority in restoration, alongside downloads for upcoming versions of Apple's desktop and mobile software.

Apple has yet to reveal the identity of those responsible for the self-imposed downtime, but one researcher claimed responsibility shortly after the outage began in July, saying that it was just a test for security instead of an intended crime.
 http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/803291.shtml#.UgjprW2HoSI

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Vivid Learning Systems Has Developed a New Redesign of Four Industry Websites

Why was this redesign needed for MSHA,Electrical Utility Safety, Healthcare and OSHA Compliance?

New design for these industries websites has provided benefits to safety professionals,from safely directors to those workers in the field of their specific industry. The new websites have provided content for education on the benefits of learning technology for safety programs.

“Our goal was to build a scalable and responsive multi-site content platform, that will allow us to easily implement new assets from game-based learning to videos and infographics" said Liz Bormida, Marketing Manager at Vivid Learning Systems. “The result is a new, mobile friendly website for each industry to help students and visitors have access to educational information and resources in an effort to help increase safety awareness in the workplace. Our vision is to bring mobility and convenience to occupational health and safety.”


“Our online visitors and students will now experience a more vibrant and seamless view of safety related content, from online training and best practices, to industry news and regulatory updates,” said Shawn Simon, Utility Manager for Vivid Learning Systems. “In the same way that the creation of Vivid Learning Systems Electrical Training Worker 1910.269 library brought top industry experts for an on-demand training solution for electrical utilities, the redesign of the Utility Safety Online website creates a new home in cyberspace for wide-ranging utility safety resources, making virtual visits to Utility Safety Online more exciting and informative than ever."

View the following websites and see what you think of the new changes made by Vivid Learning Systems.

http://www.utilitysafetyonline.com
http://www.mshatrainingonline.com
http://www.healthecaretrainingonline.com
http://www.complianceatwork.com

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A Web Developer Finds a Big Security Leak With a Top Web Browser

The very popular Google Chrome does not provide the password protection that is needed for your security. Sure it's great that when using Chrome they save your password so when you choose to visit a social media site you do not have to type password again. This service for users comes with security problems.
The security problem is that when another person uses your computer they have access to all of your saved passwords. On August 7th Elliot Kember,a web developer, reported the security problem in a blog post.

To understand how easily it is for anyone can get your passwords in chrome then just follow these directions.

Copy and paste "chrome://settings/passwords" into Chrome and hit "Enter," to see Chrome's page for managing passwords. This window will pop up:

 

   You should never allow anyone that you do not trust to have access to your computer. We all haveinformation that we want guarded from others.  Being informed  is your saving grace.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/07/google-chrome-security_n_3719233.htm

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Great Tips on Producing a Mobile -Friendly Website

Businesses need to realize that a mobile friendly website is a must to promote their products or services. The trend to mobile devices for consumer usage is high. Web developers need to be ready to update existing website to be mobile friendly. Mobdev has some very helpful tips for developers in this process.



1) Make sure mobile users are automatically redirected to the mobile version of your website.

2) Choose the foremost information to include: direct means of communication (e.g. phone numbers, click-to-call function, online booking); main information about services; locations on a map. Longer bios and other texts of secondary importance should be left solely for a desktop website. Include only the things your visitors are most likely to look for.

3) Remember that the user must access the needed pages as quickly as possible, with minimum actions. That's why the fewer pages stand between the user and the action he/she wants to accomplish, the better. To navigate through the website, the buttons should have enough space to prevent users from tapping the wrong button, or trying to hit a minuscule button to make it work.

4) While reducing the number of pages, avoid placing too much information per page. This will inevitably make navigation aggravating, which is by no means acceptable. Make sure that the design allows users to tap and swipe around your website easily. You should also avoid excessive number of images, avoid popups and Flash.

5) Avoid too much text input for users. Typing too much is not a very convenient option on a smartphone.

6) Essentially include the branding elements of your desktop site (e.g. logo, design style or colors) into the mobile website. It may seem a natural decision, but one must think how to do it in the best way to make the mobile site as recognizable as the desktop one.

7) Keep in sight a link to the desktop website. Many visitors may want to proceed there for the information that is left out in the mobile version.

8) Check how your website works on a number of mobile devices: smartphones and tablets running various platforms. Screen size is a crucial issue in any branch of mobile development.

http://www.pr.com/press-release/479670

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Would You Like to Know Who Has Been Named One the Top Bloggers in the U.S.?

                                           www.uwalumni.com

UW professor and author Deborah Blum was named one of the best bloggers in the country by a Time magazine technology writer.

Her blog address on the internet is" www.deborahblum.com".  If you are a blogger then you definitely will learn from just reading her posts.

Blum's blog, Elemental, was listed by Harry McCracken, a Time magazine editor at large, as one of the "25 best bloggers, 2013 edition."

Blum is a professor in the UW School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Pulitzer-Prize winning science writer.

McCracken writes: "'Macabre' is not an adjective that applies to many blogs of any sort, let alone ones by Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalists. In the case of Deborah Blum’s Elemental, one of Wired‘s science blogs, it fits — because her primary subject is poison, and most often poison that’s intentionally administered in the hopes of killing someone. But Elemental is informative and fascinating as well as a tad unsettling. Blum’s recent topics include the possibility that Yasser Arafat was murdered through radiation, the world’s dumbest poisoners and the death of 23 children in India who ate pesticide-laced food at school. She’s also written five books about poison, with another in the works."

Investigating Science One Story AT A Time is the theme of her blog. Her posts are very interesting and current.

Don’t miss Deborah’s #1 Amazon Kindle best-selling single, Angel Killer, a true story of a cannibal killer who stalked New York City during the 1920s and 1930s. Published by The Atavist, this is a tale of a killer who knew how to stay invisible, a detective who wouldn’t give up, and a trial that shocked the country. 

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/university/uw-prof-deborah-blum-named-a-top-blogger/article_7c7105da-fdf5-11e2-ac90-0019bb2963f4.html 

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Chatwing Company Develops a Premium Chat Box For Career Support Websites

Are you looking for a great way to get information concerning careers in your area?  What about a using a chat box where businesses and those needing to find a place of employment can communicate. Chatwing has developed this great application for websites.

                                                   www.techinfoblog.net


Chatwing.com launches an informative widget that can be embedded and utilizes social media well.

Chatwing chat software has undergone improvements aiming to provide users with a communication leverage that will further social connectivity and expansion. One of the latest upgrades includes Yahoo and Gmail log in methods, which makes the chat app raises the website’s level of accessibility. Career support websites can still interact with Facebook and Twitter users and transfer important chat messages from chatbox to one’s own Facebook wall as a form of announcement and promotion. The process of looking for the right people for a certain profession will not be tedious and challenging.

Chatwing’s thousand user capacity can definitely accommodate web surfers across the globe. Sharing interview tips, professional advices and job descriptions can be accomplished in just a few seconds and can stay in the chat box for a longer time. This will allow new web visitors to view previous messages where they can also gain from earlier conversation exchanges. Job help websites can also engage in group chats through Chatwing vanity URL form. This is possible with the generation of username and shortlinks, thus career assessment can be done efficiently online.

Chatwing chat app is highly customizable. Web admins can design the chat tool in ways that can add up to the site’s professional reputation or entice more web surfers into the web page. Users can experiment with the color combinations and upload photos as the widget’s background image. In the coming months, Chatwing chat software team plans to release more advanced chat software that can also help business oriented websites and niche blogs improve online presence. The Chatwing.com is always updated with effective tips on how to use the improved chat tool in website developments and communication advantage. About Chatwing.com
Chatwing.com specializes in the new field of live website chat software. Over years, the development team has introduced live chat widget for hundreds and thousands of blogs. The application bridges people from many parts of the world, creating global synergy through the Internet. The shout box can be installed in just seconds, and it can be used for varying purposes such as leisure and Internet marketing. It also allows a user to customize the size, color, and name of the widget.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/8/prweb10982826.htm

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Amazon Is Taking on the Style of Pinterest with "Amazon Collections"

                                                 www.engadget.com

Amazon has quietly launched its own direct challenger to Pinterest with the debut of a feature called “Amazon Collections.” It’s a more attractive, image-heavy website where consumers can save, share and discover new products by browsing those others have saved. Like Pinterest, users create separate lists, called Collections, such as “Want List” or “Fashion,” for example, and they can find and follow other users who share their same interests through the service.
The company had been testing this feature beginning with a number of bloggers ahead of a larger, public debut, and some of those with early access have already detailed their experiences using the site to put together outfits, or other initial impressions. Some were even paid to be advisors. The earliest references we’re seeing from beta testers writing about the service were posted in late April.
Today, the link to “Your Collections” appears in the list of options when you hover over “Your Account” from the drop-down menu on Amazon.com’s homepage, which gives the service a more prominent placement on Amazon’s site.
Initially, all users start off with a few empty collections (“My Style,” “Want List,” and “Possibilities”) but you can make your own Collections, too.  To add an item to a Collection, you simply click on an “Add to Collection” button below the product image on Amazon.com’s website. However, because Collections is a new feature, this button has not yet been rolled out to all the products on.

                                              techcrunch.com

To work around this problem, Amazon provides a “Collect” button that can be dragged to your browser’s bookmarks bar, letting you add any product on Amazon to your collections. This does not appear to be a way to “collect” non-Amazon products at this time, though, as nothing happens when that buttons is clicked off-site.
Users can add descriptions for their saved items, edit or remove them from their lists, or even delete entire collections at once. The service also offers a way for users to browse through default categories like Books, Men’s Fashion, Movies, Music, Women’s Fashion, Featured, and more, all of which are laid out in a Pinterest-inspired image pinboard format where there’s heavy emphasis on the item photo and little other info besides the product name and a “heart” button for favoriting things. In order to see pricing and further product details, you have to click through.
Currently, Amazon Collections’ friending and following model is limited — the site shows the popular items others are pinning to which boards and when they posted those items (e.g. “3 minutes ago”), and you can then click on those users’ names in order to follow them on the service. But there doesn’t seem to be an option for discovering your friends who are on Amazon Collections, such as through address book upload or Facebook integration.

This is not Amazon’s first experiment with providing consumers with an alternative way to shop its site, we should point out. In years past, it has launched a number of other product visualization tools, like its 2008 grid-like storefront Amazon Windowshop, which later arrived on iPad in 2010, or its 2011 dabble in augmented reality via Amazon Flow. It has also worked to make the site more social, through integrations with Facebook for tracking birthdays or figuring out what things Facebook friends want as gifts.
But this is the first time Amazon has gone so far as to boldly duplicate the overall look-and-feel of a competing service, which, to some extent, validates the traction Pinterest is seeing with e-commerce referrals. The move also comes at a time when Pinterest has been beefing up its e-commerce efforts, with new tools for online retailers, including web and mobile product pins, analytics, personalized recommendations, and, just today, price alerts.

Read more :https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+collections+pinterest&client=firefox-a&hs=Tkc&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=fflb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=icX7UaPOGbXc4APvn4HYAw&ved=

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Tips To All That Are Involved in Relaunching Your Business Website

The first question you need to ask yourself is "why do I need to change my website ?".  Is the function and appearance of the website pleasing my customers.  If you think that a makeover is what you need then there are some great tips out there for you and your web developer.

Joe Griffin has served as the co-founder and CEO of a digital marketing firm and he shared some great tips in the article that he wrote.


Re-launching a website is a massive, multi-layered task for any business.
You have make decisions not only about design and branding — a re-launch requires a seemingly endless checklist of tasks: benchmarking, content strategy, audience research, SEO, back-end hosting … the list goes on. Plus, as a business every decision is hinged on ROI: What impact will the remodeled website have on your business’ traffic, engagement, and conversion?
Your business’s flaws and weak links are often exposed when it comes time to reinvigorate your web presence.
Whether this comes in tandem with an organizational restructure, a change in services or products, a reinvigorated brand strategy, or simply after realizing that your current website is not converting customers at the level you’d like, every business should re-convene on their web strategy at least every few years.


These tips can serve as a blueprint, checklist, and guide for your enterprise’s future website remodeling plans. 

1.Get everyone on the same page

Talk to each and every stakeholder about the impending re-launch. Meet with colleagues (within your department and cross-functionally), shareholders, clients, board members, industry mentors, and other key parties as you embark on your re-launch planning.
Ask each group similar questions:

• What is missing?
• What do you like about the current site?
• Do you think it’s the right time to re-launch?
• Do we have the capacity to do this as a company?
• Do you think we will come out better afterwards?
• Do we want a re-skin, which impacts the overall design aesthetic of the website, or a re-launch, a total overhaul?

Answering these questions early on – and getting buy in and feedback from all parties — will help you in the long run. When relaunching iAcquire.com, for example, multiple departments within our agency combined forces to create a vision for the website. Doing this helped us define scope, high-level direction, budget, requirements, and most importantly goals — all essential for the beginning strategy documents of a website redesign.

2. Allocate a budget and bandwidth

Your overall budget for your website redesign will frame your bandwidth. If your budget is in the tens of thousands of dollars, you have the budget to utilize a big agency to create a new website for your enterprise. If your budget is smaller ($7,500-$15,000) you may be able to utilize outside help on a consulting basis.
Either way, a large chunk of change will be needed for a website redesign. Hosting isn’t free either, so even if you do everything in-house you’ll need a budget.
Also, consider the project scope and if your in-house team has the capacity to complete such a large-scale project. Creative, content, promotion, SEO, and developers will all need to commit a large part of their workload to the project. For example, our marketing and strategy team dedicated a good solid three month to the project.
CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, and legal need to be engaged from the beginning as well. And project status should be communicated at least one time per week to high-level stakeholders.

3. Ensure benchmarks are in place

Create benchmarking documents to track the current website’s design and content, layout, as well as audience targeting and current website analytics (visitor interaction and conversion) so you can accurately measure success after the new site launches. Define your current and future KPIs and keep track of them. Keep in mind that these may change as your organization grows, so be inclusive and collect as much as you can.
For iAcquire, we use the following key performance indicators:

• Leads
• Time on site
• Share of voice
• Number of links
• Organic search rankings
• Impressions
• Traffic

4. Define or redefine your key audience personas 
Consumers are getting savvier and savvier by the minute and modern technology allows users to tune out various messages. With that being said, it is crucial to craft your remodeled website around your converting, engaged personas.
Once you define audience personas, you can better direct:

• The tone of the copy
• The website’s overall design/look
• What type of content (images, copy, videos) resonates best
• Calls to action – where the are placed, what copy to use, user path

Creating audience personas helps all creative, content, and allows marketing stakeholders to maintain uniformity. Leverage audience market data, survey results, and need states to create personas and user stories. Use this template and create your own three to five personas. Utilize market research tools like Experian, Nielsen, Facebook data, and even Google Analytics to get to the core of your visitor base.

5. Plan as much as you execute

Draft a creative brief that includes all project requirements – from copy and SEO to technical hosting and color scheme requirements. This brief will serve as the blueprint for all parties working on the redesign.  The plan can be as long as 30 pages, though the length is not important; the content is the important part. If it helps you, then delegate specific sections to different leaders within your team. Come together and review the plan, and then from there start executing your strategy.

6. Consider your copy

A shiny, well-designed site is great, but like your looks it’s the first thing to go with age. If your content isn’t great, neither is your site. And it’s not just about well-written prose; it all has to be planned out, persona-driven content, created by understanding your key audiences and how they behave online. Develop a roadmap for content strategy and your copy will fall into place.
Within iAcquire, we know that governance and establishing an editorial calendar is just as important as setting up the content framework. Without structural guidance organizations can fall into content paralysis. These processes defines the players, topics, and requirements necessary to curate and publish content.

7. Keep the bot in mind

Within your re-launch two key “audiences” need to be kept in mind: your visitors and the search engine spiders. Search engines have a very detailed algorithm for ranking pages, and with your re-launch you want to make sure that you stay even or above in your rankings. Here are three key considerations you should have for SEO:

• Redirects
  If specific URLs are no longer active, or you are changing the site architecture, make sure 301s redirects are in place. Non-existent redirects can lead to a “docked” search position.
• Conversion end-points
  Your re-designed website will probably not have the same conversion funnel or path as your last site, so make sure someone is dedicated to checking the conversion points on your redesigned sites to make sure they are a) working, b) properly migrated, and c) tracked.
• On-page keyword analysis
  Target two to three keywords per page and intertwine them organically throughout the copy and metadata. If your organization previously targeted a list of keywords, look at them again as competition and volume changes from year to year and even month to month.

8. Who’s your host?

Consider where you are going to host your site.

Is it going to sit on a server that your enterprise owns and maintains, or will it live with a hosting company? Is your hosting bandwidth enough? Consider what frameworks you will use on the front end, and what Javascript libraries you will use, such as MooTools or jQuery. PHP, .Net, or Rails? WordPress or Drupal?
All of these decisions need to be made early on.

9. Utilize Google Webmaster Tools

Once your website is in development, have your organization set up a Google account (if you don’t already have one) and get acquainted with Google Webmaster Tools. This free Google tool can tell you any problems with site/page indexing and even click-through rates. If the content is being rearranged on your new site, it could be buried deeper, making it harder for search engines to crawl, which leads to a non-indexed area.

10. Strategize a post-launch plan

Your job isn’t over when your redesigned site launches. Create a plan to promote the new site on social media, PR outreach, and blog announcements. Plan on pushing marketing messages through these channels for at least two weeks past the launch. Connect with key influencers on social who can push your message further.
Then create a plan to organize, develop, curate, and publish new content so you keep luring new visitors in: inbound marketing at its finest. On an internal communications front, make sure that your organization is kept in the loop as well. Inform all departments of the re-launch. Be clear on what has changed and how they can utilize your “2.0” or “3.0″ website to optimally conduct their respective jobs.
While every organization has needs, adopting a process is a crucial element. Use this list as a guide, and customize it to meet your organization’s unique challenges, and develop a website that reflects your company
http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/07/10-essential-tips-for-your-companys-web-design-project/

 

 

 

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Nick D'Aloisio Strategy on Becoming an Internet Millionaire

                                                            www.wired.co.uk
Andy Yates of Real Business gives us the strategy it takes for this 17 year old to be a financial success.

1. Find a real problem and a worthwhile solution
For Nick D’Aloisio the problem was wasting hours trawling the internet for decent content. He wanted an easy way to access key information quickly. His solution saved people time and effort. Yahoo! serves content to hundreds of millions of users - that is a lot of time and effort that can be saved and the reason they snapped up the business.
Successful entrepreneurs find a big enough problem - big enough that people will pay to solve it. Pay to ease the pain or to be able to do something better and more productively.
If you can find something that is better than the competition, or better still, a new way of doing things that disrupts the current market, then you have answered the first question on "Who wants to be an internet millionaire".
2. No pain, no gain
Becoming an internet millionaire is hard work (especially if you have to fit your A-Levels in, too). I have yet to meet any entrepreneur who gets their product right first time. The idea has to be tweaked and perfected. Old plans are thrown out, new ones tested.
D'Aloisio’s original product needed a fair amount of seed investment to turn it into Summly. It didn’t happen overnight and, no doubt, involved a lot of blood, sweat and tears (and, if my kids are anything to go by, the odd teenage tantrum).
Customer testing can be a testing time for any business - but it is vital. Then, when you find what people will buy, what will really ease the customer’s pain, it is well worth it.
3. Think big
To make a million you have to find somebody to buy your business. And buyers are only likely to stump up their cash if the problem you are solving is big enough. There is nothing wrong with lifestyle businesses that can support you, your colleagues and your family. But buyers are not looking for lifestyle businesses. They are looking for scale and the ability for a business to make big in-roads into a large potential market.
In other words, do enough people really need and want your product?
On its own, an online or mobile app is not a business (a mistake too many people make) - but you can certainly build a business out of the right app.
In other words, if you want to make it big, think big.
4. Get by with a little help from your friends
In reality, most internet businesses don’t have huge barriers to entry and competition could be just around the corner. However, generating PR and buzz can be a great differentiator. D’Aloisio appears to be a past master at this - highly impressive for one so young.
After his original product was named "App of the week" by Apple he caught the eye of a venture capital firm, which in turn led to some celebrity backers, including Stephen Fry, Ashton Kutcher and Yoko Ono, no less. Basking in the limelight of high-profile backers helped his app get more than a million downloads after its launch.
Getting noticed, getting networked and standing out in a very crowded market is crucial.
5. Don’t think about the money
Yes, I know this point is ironic given the title of this article. But money is not the primary driver of many entrepreneurs. It is the buzz of success, the sense of achievement, the desire to see a product out there and change the status quo.
Put all your energy into getting the product right and grasping the opportunity rather than dreaming of untold riches and counting the money in your own head. If the business is strong, your chances of making money are strong - but lose focus and you may lose the prize.
Asked what he would do with the money D’Aloisio said he wanted to buy a new pair of trainers and a computer. After that he was a bit stumped. All his time and effort had gone into business reality, not dreams.
D’Aloisio got so much press because he is one of an all too rare breed in the UK - a young internet millionaire. And it is not just internet millionaires we are lacking. I would love to see so many more successful business people.
So, a parting thought: come on, entrepreneurs across the UK (young and old alike). I hope the D’Aloisio story eggs you on to real and deserved success of your own.

http://realbusiness.co.uk/article/22293-who-wants-to-be-an-internet-millionaire_22293

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Website Domains Are About to Change in a Big Way!

                                                  

                                                              danieldlaine.com

We have grown accustomed to seeing to the right of the dot in domain addresses "com", "net"," info" ,"org",etc.   The options in our domain names are going to be huge.  Network Solutions is already posting on their website "Hundreds of New Domains Are Coming"

The purpose of this change in domains is for companies and organizations to have the opportunity get the right targeted audience for your endeavors. 

For example :  www.mikesmarket.florist   When a person is searching on the web they will know that Mike's Market is specifically a florist and not a produce market.

What is your opinion of this change in DOMAINS?

http://newtlds.networksolutions.com/Interest

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Website Templates by MotoCMS

Moto CMS Now Include a Wide Variety of Customizable HTML Templates.

 MotoCMS, creators of the simple and intuitiveMotoCMS website builder, proudly announces the addition of HTML templates to its already extensive collection of beautiful and user-friendly templates. Featuring both HTML and Flash options, users can browse the entire selection of website templates by MotoCMS or select only the template type they wish to use.

Designed for both the seasoned professional and the newbie creating his or her first website, the website templates powered by MotoCMS are created with the principles of simplicity and functionality in mind. However, what users gain in ease of use, they do not lose in style and design. Each MotoCMS template is sleek, cutting-edge, highly professional, and creates a website that customers can be proud of that showcases their products, designs or services in a beautiful way.

According to an article on the website, "Since the moment we started developing complete solutions for website development and management, all our efforts were directed at building a truly convenient and user-friendly content management system for websites, starting from online business cards to complex portals. And we want our customers to get a real masterpiece in the end, but not a template half-finished product created only for profit."

The drag and drop website builder makes creating a website simple, with widgets available with every template. These highly-functional choices include Google Maps, drop down menus, photo and video galleries, Buy Now button, an advanced contact form and more. In addition, the built-in mobile editor allows users to build and create a mobile-friendly version of their site easily and quickly. With over 1,500 designs in a wide variety of categories, MotoCMS has the right design for anyone looking to make a website their own.

Now with the choice of searching Flash templates, HTML templates or both, customers can find exactly the type of site they want by look and feel as well as design. Each template is available to preview, and customers can build and try their website for free for 30 days.

About MotoCMS
Moto CMS is the powerful and feature-rich website builder that allows its users to make professional, beautiful and mobile friendly websites. Each template has an integrated admin panel through which users can easily customize and manage their MotoCMS websites in a matter of clicks. The templates collection includes more than 1,500 templates in a variety of categories.

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Why Does Terradon Communications Use Kentico CMS Desk for Website Development?

TCG uses Kentico CMS because we can give customers a dynamic website with many options in order to communicate well to the viewers in which they are focusing in their business plan.


Kentico CMS is an enterprise Web Content Management System and Customer Experience Management System that provides a complete set of features for building websites, intranets, community sites and e-commerce solutions on the Microsoft ASP.NET platform. It supports mobile websites, SEO, document management, online marketing tools, multilingual websites, multisite management and it ships with 40 modules, 340 configurable Web parts and source code available.

Kentico Software (http://www.kentico.com) helps clients create successful dynamic websites, intranets, community sites and e-commerce solutions using Kentico CMS for ASP.NET. It's committed to deliver a full-featured, enterprise-class, stable and scalable Web Content Management solution on the Microsoft .NET platform. Founded in 2004, Kentico is headquartered in the Czech Republic and has offices in the United States (Nashua, NH and Seattle, WA) and United Kingdom (Reading).



Web Content Management Software Leader, Kentico CMS, announced in early July that Gold Partner BlueModus was recognized as a top 10 website in June for its responsive mobile engineering and web development with Martini (http://www.martini.com).

According to BlueModus President, Dave Baumgarten, “Martini needed a site that provided an upscale experiential interface, but did not want to sacrifice responsive behavior or the capability for its markets to translate the site to a specific region.” To achieve this, BlueModus leveraged Kentico as the Web platform. Working with Exposure, a UK-­based design agency, the website takes users through the Martini products and drinks, using an HTML5 approach to display products with lighting effects to highlight the imagery provided in these sections.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/7/prweb10956536.htm

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Is Google Making Its Mark With Social Media?

                                  

                                           igetpaidonline.biz



Google 's popularity as a social network has really grown in the past year. You may be wondering how did this happen. The following article explains how Google is a must for marketers.


Why Google+ is becoming a necessary social media channel for marketers by Chris Mead at "Tug".

The service has evolved to offer a growing user base, unique functionality and interconnectivity with other Google services.



In January 2013, the Global Web Index announced that Google+ had overtaken Twitter to become the second largest social network. Six months prior, many marketers may have had their reservations about setting up a Google+ page, but the network has gained traction – and with good reason.

Given the rise of social search, marketers and large brands are now aware that Google has pushed the integration of many of its services such as YouTube, Google Maps, Android and others with Google+, making the social network integral to social media and search marketing campaigns.

Google+ boasts a sizeable 359m monthly active users and brand interaction has increased by 45.5% between Q2 2012 and Q1 2013.

When logged into a Google account, searching for a brand terms allows a connected Google+ page to appear on the right-hand side of the search listings (see the search results for Expedia as an example). The page appears regardless of whether you follow the page or not, and sits prominently in the right-hand sidebar. Since this placement (based around searches for brand terms) is free, easy to set up and quick to implement (brands need only add a small piece of code that connects their Google+ page to make the connection) it is highly advantageous and gives a quick data capture and community build element from natural search listings.

What this means is that Google+ has become a very serious player in a short period of time. Google have been careful to link the social network to search listings, ensuring that there is a clear reason for brands to integrate the service into their existing online marketing strategy for SEO.

Larger brands have already taken advantage of the social network by working directly with Google. For example, Topshop's well-documented usage of hangouts to stream live fashion week, and Burberry recently introducing its Kisses campaign. The uptake is not limited to the luxury industry however, with Cadbury having adopted hangouts early with a series of live events. Other noteworthy mentions include Coca-Cola andIntel, both boasting an established, content-rich presence on the social network.

Google+ is not like Facebook. In order to understand and define its purpose in your online marketing strategy it is important to embrace its uniqueness and individuality – no matter how similar the two may operate and look.

Gaining traction and interest is Google+'s Hangout, which has featured heavily on the network and is set to be integral to Android devices andGoogle Glass. A neat feature embedded within Hangouts is the ability to watch shared YouTube videos across the group. This allows users to share videos among industry experts. Hangout's also opening the door for more advanced uses including the "draw" tool to facilitate competitions. Real-time giveaways and competitions integrated into Google+'s Hangout functionality are becoming a reality thanks to the emerging live stream market and high volume of early adopters making use of the service.

The social network should already be viewed as a customer relationship network (CRM) channel – just as Twitter and Facebook may be to you now. When this does happen, you'll need to understand the nuances the platform offers, and how to use them to your advantage.

Google+ has fast become an integral component to online marketing campaigns, with larger brands already exemplifying the creative possibilities attributed to the social network. Currently the simplest reason to use Google+ is discoverability, given that your page can appear in the natural listings on Google. Yet the social network has evolved from a purely SEO beneficial channel to one where its growing user base, feature-rich environment (Hangouts, Communities) and interconnectivity with other Google services have re-aligned its importance within digital marketing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/jul/24/google-plus-social-media-marketers

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Ecommerce Website Development and Marketing News

Interesting article in the news how important it is that you realize what a well developed website can do for your business. With the internet your business is not just 9 to 5 it is 24 hours a day.  This is why you need a website that can handle customers when you are not able available.

If there is anybody here who is actually planning to start his own business,flaw detector manufacturers and suppliers. he should also consider doing online marketing and it is highly suggested that he should do so most especially if he wants to gather a lot of potential clients not only in the conventional way. Nobody can fully deny that, nowadays, everybody is always online every day and all through the night.HENGJIA INDUSTRY GROUP LIMITED is a professional and crowned promotion usbs, gift pen drive, usb sticks manufacturer in Shenzhen China.Our website:www.usbstickspromo.com. There may be some who would just look through various internet sites searching for something intriguing and find new knowledge. But, almost all people today are going shopping on the information highway trying to find what they need and what they want. Because of shopping on the web, many people who are into business advertising different products and/or services should consider ecommerce website development so that he can market his products and/or services not just domestically but offshore as well and collect more potential clients.

With a web page of his own, not only he can attract potential customers near his own city but he can also attract several customers, possibly, from several countries as well. He may not know it but there might be some person thousands of miles away from him who are looking for a particular product and it so happen that he is also marketing the same product.



Additionally, if he has his own web site and would fully utilize his online business, it's highly suggested that he should go for ecommerce website development and should try to spend time, a great deal of money and lots of effort on it so he can reach to millions of people all over the world faster. One can just imagine the amount of people who are interested in his various products and/or services,These Premium electronic cigarette flavors brands give smokers an alternative smoking option. All of IVG's electronic cigarette brands contain no smoke, no secondhand smoke, no tar and no tobacco. right? For sure, he is going to enjoy huge sales revenues, right?

When one is talking about web site development to boost his business online undertakings, there are many different points that he needs to ponder over and needs to always keep in mind.

First on the list of these various things is that a web site should also be handled like an ordinary department store. This means that the virtual store owner must also spend a lot of time, effort and money in pampering up his webpage to make it look so very good and very attractive to the visitors who can be potential clients. This is where website designing comes in.

Aside from web development, it is also highly recommended that he should concentrate on creating different articles that are informative and relevant to his business and that can aid visitors be totally informed of what is being promoted on his website. This is one of the very vital parts of internet site development wherein the owner of such web page can inform his readers and/or website visitors and make them understand what the
webpage is all about and to find out if what they wanted or needed is available.


When talking regarding ecommerce website development,pcb manufacturers-Cheer Time Manufacturer Of rohs pcb assembly,PCB Quick Turn,PCB QUICK WASH etc. one should really spent a lot of time, money and effort most specifically when trying it out for the first time. But, there are many people who would hire someone to do this job for them.I get rid of a rubber hose shop in being thinking that the Toulouse centre is Midica's. I am in there my centre , live in, you are not that driving and it are face to face easy to get to be obliged to face, that discovering Cheap Surveillance Security Cameras in me than speaking is that other had better speak is generally expensive, shop but self it be in the past go to there. Truthfully, it is not difficult in finding somebody since, these days, there are many different Business Process Outsourcing or BPO companies on the Net that has a battery of professionals who can do this type of work for anybody who will contract out to these outsourcing solutions companies or firms.


Link: http://needlebearing.sportsblog.com/post/116884/catapulting_electronic_business_via_ecommerce.html

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