The phenomenal growth of the Internet is revolutionizing the communication industry. Old models of communication strategy are becoming irrelevant.
The phenomenal growth of the Internet is revolutionizing the communication industry. Old models of communication strategy are becoming irrelevant.
Life in the new millennium will revolve around our ability and capacity to have immediate access to vast amounts of information, presented with dynamism, in real time, and in an interactive mode. (Immediate access - via Internet-enabled devices wherever we are, in our kitchen and bath, in bars, on our dash boards, in the elevator and in our plane seats). Advertising, as it was once called, will be changed forever.
Until now, Print and TV were the primary media for sending our messages. Now we have the amazing power of the Internet, we can compare methods, and the deficiencies of print and TV become clear.
Print and TV:
Offer limited bits of information.
Offer it from a distance.
Are received by a passive viewer.
Have relatively little depth.
Have almost zero continuity.
The Internet:
1. Establishes connection, both literally and figuratively.
When someone logs on to your web site, they have made a conscious effort, physically and mentally, to connect. He is an active viewer. When the site comes up, a mental connection is firmly established. It is as if they are now in the lobby of your sales office, and they must feel welcome.
2. Establishes captivation:
Having connected to your site, a "viewer" does not turn away, or skip the channel. Captivation is established, and most persons will go two or three levels deep into the site. This person is no longer a "viewer" but a visitor to your facilities.
3. Establishes continuation.
Having consciously connected once, visitors will always have a point from which to reestablish connection, whenever they want. In traditional advertising, continuity is limited to the phone, and all the hassles that it may entail.
However, the challenge is to get large numbers of viewers to want to visit your site. Just posting your web site address on traditional ads will not do. Waiting for people to search and maybe find you via a search engine is also too passive.
The following two methods need to be employed, the first being the most effective. It assumes the use of traditional methods to initiate the process (Print, TV, Billboards etc.).
1. Curiosity
What can you say in an ad that will arouse enough curiosity to make your audience want to visit your site? This is the primary method, and it involves using catchy .com phrases or slogans, which generate the desired level of curiosity, or evokes some strong sentiment.
2. Candies
The second method is by offering candies. That is you offer something free, or some benefit to attract visitors. It may be future cyber-dollars, or NetMiles (akin to Airmiles).
Once the viewer decides to visit, then the sheer power of the Internet takes over. "Advesting", as it is now called, the combination of advertising and virtual guesting, because the visitor to your site is your virtual guest)(the 5C's model) is infinitely more powerful than "advertising", because it offers:
Connection,
Captivation,
Continuation,
once the viewer is invited through Curiosity or Candies.
Imagine someone driving along a highway in L.A. or Toronto, and he or she sees a huge billboard saying: "Lovethefeeling.com" and nothing else. The very next time that person gets to a keyboard, at the office or at home, he or she will type, "lovethefeeling.com". Why?
It is catchy.
It arouses curiosity.
It hints at sensuality.
It is both a statement (I love the feeling) and a command (love the feeling!)
It is easy to remember.
Imagine this phrase in the pages of Time or USA Today, or, on bumper stickers; you will get millions of visitors. These types of phrases are priceless. Advertising professionals need to focus on the art of each of the 5 C's, to exploit the phenomenal potential of Internet "advesting".
About the Author:
Ali Gibran is an Internet consultant in the Toronto Area.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
The Changing Face Of Advertising
Importance of CSS in web development
CSS style sheets have made it easier to handle web pages during web development. CSS or Cascading Style Sheets as the name suggests is a style sheet that allows you to easily link to other documents in your website. It allows you to retain control over the various elements in different web pages of your website.
CSS only defines the structure and content presentation of a website it has nothing to do with the design of a website. A single CSS sheet can control the font, positioning, colour and style information of an entire website.
9 advantages of using CSS
1. Web pages are easier to load and uses less bandwidth
CSS style sheets are preferred by web developers for website development because they are lighter than table layouts, which consumes lots of bandwidth. The style sheet is downloaded only once and stored in the cache memory, so subsequent pages load faster.
2. A CSS style sheet compliments well with HTML
HTML is insufficient when used independently in website development, but when combined with CSS they can result in technically stronger web pages.
3. CSS allows you to position your element anywhere in the webpage
Web developers love to use CSS because it allows them to position their element where ever they want in the web page. If during any phase of web development the developer feels that particular links or columns are not going well with the situation then it becomes easier for them to position them easily using CSS. CSS reduces the risks associated with maintenance of the website.
4. CSS is compatible with all web browsers
CSS is combined with HTML or XHTML by web developers for web application development because it is compatible with all web browsers. The sites that use CSS appear similar in all the web browsers.
5. CSS can be used to create print friendly web pages
Most of the web developers love to use CSS for building their HTML based web applications because they allow them to create print friendly web pages. These web pages can be easily printed. The colours, images and other things which are difficult to be printed can be eliminated and printed easily.
6. CSS style sheets allows the user to customize the webpage
Now days many websites allow the user to change the layout of the website without affecting the content. The CSS style sheets which are stored externally allow the user to make requisite changes by themselves. Most of the modern browsers give user the liberty to define their own style sheets like changing some font properties etc.
7. CSS style sheets makes it easier for your website to feature in search engines
The CSS style sheets are favoured by web developers because they allow them to position their elements as per their wish anywhere in web application. Positioning helps to project the main contents first, so that it is easily captured by web spiders. CSS also gives cleaner HTML codes thus cutting down the job of web spider to search the real content from junk code.
8. CSS allows the web pages to have absolute consistency
One of the reasons for using CSS during web development is that they allow consistency to all web pages. All the expressions and texts will get their characteristics from external style sheet. Web developers need not to worry about the change in characteristics of the elements because they can be easily altered at any stage of web development by using CSS.
9. CSS lends portability to content
By using CSS you can make separate style sheets for different media. This provides you the great flexibility in presenting your content. CSS allows you to redefine the characteristics of elements in a website to suit the need of the situation. For e.g.: A separate style sheet will allow you to redefine the characteristics of certain elements so that they are easier to be printed. Also the user will never come to know that you had restructured the characteristics for their benefit.
CSS is created to make the things easier for your website and also to give you control over different elements in your website. Utilising benefits of CSS will give you popular user friendly web pages.
About the Author: Sigma InfoTech is an Australian based Website Design firm, specialising in Website Development, Web Developer, Website design, Application Development Australia. Write editor to webmastergrace@gmail.com your comments and suggestions will be highly appreciated.
One Million Dot Ca Domains
One of the frustrations of ecommerce entrepreneurs who do business worldwide (especially those of us in the publishing and information business) is the inability to legally register top level domains (TLD's) in those countries we serve outside of our own.
There are search engine visibility advantages to canadian domains for canada.com searches, Google.ca searches and http://ca.yahoo.com/ searches. While those latter two send plenty of US speaking Canadian visitors to .com domains - the added value of a home-grown perception for Canadians in visiting and frequenting those domains in their own .ca TLD can bring significant benefits to a business.
Canada is one example where one must reside in the country or have a legitimate office there to qualify to reserve a dot .ca domain name under the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) rules. So until your business expands to have a physical presence in Canada, you must remain content to watch the celebration of a million dot ca domains as an outsider. What follows is the CIRA press release and announcement of the celebratory "One Million Domains dot CA site".
CANADA HITS ONE MILLION DOT-CA (.CA) INTERNET ADDRESSES
OTTAWA, Ontario, April 15, 2008 - The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) announced today that Canadian Internet users have registered one million dot-ca (.ca) Internet domain names. As one of the world's most wired nations, Canadians continue to use the Internet for personal and business reasons in ever increasing numbers. Reaching the one million dot-ca domain name milestone demonstrates Canada's strong Internet presence and the popularity of Canadian websites.
Brent Krause of Calgary, Alberta, registered the one-millionth dot-ca domain name, krauslaw.ca, and is using it for a website to promote his private law practice. "I've recommended dot-ca domains in the past and dot-ca was my first choice for my own legal practice," says Krause who has over 10-years experience in intellectual property law.
The dot-ca domain name was established in 1987 by a group of volunteers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and transferred to CIRA in 2000. In 1988 the first dot-ca domain name, upei.ca, was registered by the University of Prince Edward Island. Since then dot-ca domain name usage has grown at over 20% per year. This growth is remarkable considering that dot-ca domains are reserved exclusively for Canadians. "Dot-ca represents Canada on the Internet. A dot-ca domain name, website, or email address means you can be confident that you are dealing with a Canadian or Canadian business online," says Byron Holland, President and CEO of CIRA.
Dot-ca now ranks as the seventeenth largest Internet domain name registry when compared to generic domain names like dot-com and country specific domain names like dot-uk (United Kingdom). "The registration of over one million dot-ca domains is a testament to the great work being done by CIRA. On behalf of the entire ICANN community, congratulations," said Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the global organization that governs Internet domain names.
To thank Canadians for making a dot-ca their domain name of choice CIRA has launched a celebration website, www.onemilliondomains.ca to highlight dot-ca success stories. Dot-ca domain names are available through a network of over 140 Canadian domain name registrars who also provide a range of Internet solutions including website hosting, email service, and website design.
About CIRA
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is the not-for-profit, member-driven organization that manages Canada's dot-ca (.ca) domain name registry, develops and implements policies that support Canada's Internet community, and represents the dot-ca registry internationally. CIRA processes over 300 million requests per day to connect Internet users with over one million dot-ca Internet addresses.
For more information or to schedule an interview:
Melisa Durak-Buljubasic
Public Relations and Communications Specialist
Phone: 613-237-5335 (ext. 294)
Cell: 613.219.5328
melisa.db@cira.ca
About the Author:
Mike Banks Valentine operates SEOptimism, Offering SEO training of in-house content managers http://seoptimism.com/SEO_Staff_Training.htm as well as the Small Business Ecommerce Tutorial at http://WebSite101.com and blogs about SEO at http://RealitySEO.com where this article appears with live links to SMO stories, buttons, blog posts and examples.
World Intellectual Property Day
Intellectual Property
Breaking News
World Intellectual Property Day
Celebrating innovation and promoting respect for intellectual property
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has been celebrating World Intellectual Property Day (WIPD) since 2001. The 26 April was the date when the Convention establishing WIPO originally came into force in 1970.
Each year, WIPO and its Member States celebrate World Intellectual Property Day with activities, events and campaigns. These seek to increase public understanding of what IP really means, and to demonstrate how the IP system fosters not only music, arts and entertainments, but also all the products and technological innovations that help to shape our world.
WIPO issues a message from the Director General each year, broadcasts a short publicity spot on international television channels, and dispatches posters and other promotional materials to IP offices and organizations.
The aims of World IP Day are:
- to raise awareness of how patents, copyright, trademarks and designs impact on daily life;
- to increase understanding of how protecting IP rights helps promote creativity and innovation;
- to celebrate creativity, and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of societies across the globe;
- to encourage respect for the IP rights of others.
This year, the UK Intellectual Property Office is joining WIPO and its members in celebrating the link between intellectual property (IP) and creativity under the theme - Celebrating innovation and promoting respect for intellectual property.
To celebrate World IP Day 2008 on Friday 25 April 2008, the UK Intellectual Property Office is:
- Hosting an Intellectual Property Celebration in London for IP stakeholders. Attendance by invitation only.
- Organising workshops for primary and secondary school children focussing on celebrating innovation and promoting respect for intellectual property. The fun filled day will include a visit from Oscar winners Wallace and Gromit who are fronting the UK-IPO's primary school educational campaign Cracking Ideas . Attendance by invitation only.
- Ask the expert online question and answer session. Do you have a burning question about Intellectual Property? To coincide with World IP Day staff will be on hand to answer your questions.
- Publication of a special edition World IP Day, IP Insight e-Newsletter.
