Web Content News & Articles

While it seems likely that the Stop Online Piracy Act has died in the House of Representatives a week before Congress was set to vote on it, the Internet is still not breathing a sigh of relief. The fate of the Protect-IP legislation is still in the hands of the Senate. To help Congress and other Americans who may not realize what’s at stake should these acts pass, many sites are going dark on Wednesday, January 18.

Apple's Thursday event won't be a show-stopper in the usual iDevice sense, but early chatter suggests that the company may be about to revolutionize ebook creation. It could achieve this by launching a Garageband-like app to bring content-rich, Web-enabled, digital book creation tools to everyone.

Linking is the essence of the Web. Web professionals must focus primarily on links, rather than the content or technology.

Use of mobile devices to consume information (news, books and other media) is rapidly leaving the printed word for dead. Yet, old habits die hard among advertisers who stick limpet-like to print advertising. This is something that is probably annoying mobile ad agencies, as a report by a mobile marketing (ahem) firm points out.

With mobile applications moving toward a US$ 50 billion industry, by 2014, Oracle has launched its Connected Digital Lifestyle solution that enables communications service providers to create online content stores to boost conversion rates (and revenue) with an end-to-end retailing platform solution.

Oracle calls this a unified platform for service exposure, content management and delivery, and advertising to enable new revenue streams and increase customer loyalty. The group also includes an upgrade to Gatekeeper (5.0) in the suite, which helps leverage existing network assets like billing, messaging and location to support the development effort.

 With an eye toward breaking out of the application confines of the social space, a new service, Webdoc, has launched, claiming the "...most expressive way to share your passion online." The HTML5-powered set of web tools looks to target corporate marketers, with The Guardian, EMI Music,  Nikelodeon and Playboy already on board, but is available to anyone wanting to "...grab content from across the web and express themselves in a moment" using tools as easy as a tweet, but as rich as a web page.

The promise, to mix photos, audio, video, text, drawings and the rest into an instant Webdoc that supports your passion for -- well, just about anything. This toolset includes apps from the company App store, and also allows sharing and embedding on Facebook, Webdoc said. 

Ever notice how your newly installed Firefox browser would always default to the Google search site? That’s because of a lucrative deal Mozilla, owner of the Firefox brand, cut with Google back in 2006, in the pre-Chrome days. Well, the world has shifted since then and with the November expiration of the Google deal, Mozilla could stand to lose up to 80% of company revenue according to Computerworld. And while the deal has reaped a windfall for Mozilla, it also gave Google time to develop what is now a rising star in the quest for King of the Browser Hill.  

With Bright Hub cutting back, Demand Media's share price diving and Google strangling the very concept, is time up for the content farm?

Sitecore announced that Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), which is taking a large minority investment in Sitecore, has been invited to join its group of shareholders.

At the giant search and social media conference Pubcon in Las Vegas, Google’s top Spam cop Matt Cutts said in his talk the company is getting out the knife again.  He reported Google is looking to discern “…what are the things that really matter, how much content is above the fold.”

You may remember the last time Cutts’ team went after low-quality content was with its Panda algorithm, also known as Farmer, that targeted content farms gaining top search hits on “shallow” content.

It’s a “corner the market strategy" in on-line ads that just might work. Today Yahoo!, Microsoft and Amazon joined in an Internet troika with hopes that ad sharing among their respective customers will boost both efficiency and revenue, creating a virtual “Maginot line” of defense against the Facebook and Google advertising onslaught. 

But can a unity and customer sharing strategy stand up against the power of social networking technology, delivering online ads on a rocket ship growth trajectory that’s gone from US$ 145 million in 2007 to a projected US$ 2.01 billion by the close of 2011, eclipsing market leader Yahoo in the process?

There has been a lot of press over the last month or so on Netflix’s pricing and product missteps. Starting with the 60% price increase and the subsequent user revolt,  closely followed by a mea-culpa by Reed Hastings, Netflix’s CEO, which in the 10th paragraph introduced the world to the Qwikster spinoff that lasted less than 3 weeks before the culmination of which was a full retreat from the product split.

Today we’re talking about hybrid publishing apps from the technical perspective.

Storify -- a popular social storytelling tool among journalists -- launched a new editor interface this week, adding easy-to-use tools for fast content curation.

A final reminder that at 1pm ET, 10 PT today we are holding our monthly tweet jam. We will focus on the 3C's of Customer Experience: Content, Community, Commerce. The hashtag again is #CXMChat, the discussion topics:

1. Content, Community, Commerce: Which is your top CXM focus and why?
2. Is CXM maturing as a discipline and how is it changing organizations?
3. Do you believe orgs need a more abstracted role called "Experience (or Engagement) Architect"?
4. How is ecommerce evolving in the age of CXM?
5. What do you think is the big opportunity for CXM in 2012?

Check out the list of panelists attending and get yourself ready to settle in for a fast paced discussion on customer experience.

You can watch the event right here, or join us via your Twitter tool of choice. See you soon!

A Few Reminders

• Introduce yourself with your first #CXMChat tweet. Include your name, job title and organization you work for.
• Subsequent tweets must start with the question number you are responding to and the #CXMChat hashtag. For example, "@bigbird Q5 We very much believe sentiment analysis works #CXMChat"
• Please don't pitch products or services; stay knowledge focused
• Keep the discussion professional, but informal
• Remember that this is a public chat — be thoughtful