Newsletter Archive

The Internet 800 Directory - http://www.inter800.com
The Internet 800 Directory Newsletter
This issue is for Friday, January 09, 2004
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Table of Contents
01. Open Book
02. Key Word Search
03. Tip Of The Week
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*01 Open Book

Welcome to the New Year, may it be better than the last.

Today, technology is making our life an open book. As we move into the
future, this trend is only going to snowball. Soon, personal privacy
will be a thing of the past, if it isn't already.

You movements can be tracked by the GPS in your cell phone. Where you
spend your money can be determined by looking at your credit card
transactions. And, of course, everything we view on the Internet can be
tracked. Even your eating habits can be determined through supermarkets'
loyalty card programs.  All of these things are a part of everyday life
in this modern world, but what happens when governments use this
information to "protect us" from ourselves?

In England, members of the Health Select Committee investigating their
obesity crisis requested that supermarkets use their loyalty cards to
monitor unhealthy eating habits. The committee hoped that by using the
data, they could identify customers who bought excessive amounts of high
fat, sugar and salt foods. Once identified, these customers could be
steered towards more healthy products. This idea didn't fly. England's
not going to scrutinize their citizens eating habit, not yet anyway.
Anytime this type of information exists, people are going to want to use
it for what they understand as the greater good.

In this country, we are fortunate to be protected by the Fourth
Amendment of our Constitution. It states:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Our founding fathers understood the power of government for both good
and evil. This amendment was written to prevent the abuse of the power
we have granted our leaders.

To start off, the New Year in Las Vegas the FBI required all hotel
operators to surrender guest lists and airlines to turn over arriving
passenger manifests from December 22 to January 1. The funny part is the
FBI and local law enforcement agencies have said there was no specific
and credible terrorist threat aimed at Las Vegas over the recent
holiday. Maybe Vegas should change their new slogan to “What you do here
stays here and in the FBI data base”.

If we are not vigilant, this innocently collected information could one
day be use to control us.

Chuck Arning at chuck@inter800.com

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*02 Key Word Search

Key Word Search - Why don't they get it?

This week, one of our long-time customers cancelled a significant
contract with us because they have a new VP in marketing that concluded
that they have a significant presence on the Internet because of their
name. I will grant you that if one goes to Overture, AOL, Google, etc.
and types in this company's name that they will appear, at least on the
first page. Name branding is important in Fortune 500 companies, but is
it as important on the Internet to SME's?

The Internet has evolved to where any user is no longer just surfing,
but is specifically looking for a product to buy, or a service or a
topic. It is our experience that the vast majority of our users are
searching for a key word and not a brand.

Therefore, anyone looking for, say, IBM, can actually just type in those
letters in the search window of their browser and will get a link.
However, when I type in "wood" in Mozilla, I get "wood magazine". In IE,
I get "wood", as provided by Encarta. In Netscape I get all the
"sponsored" sites related to "wood". Etc.

In 1995, when we started the Internet 800 Directory, we believed that
this was going to be a basic element of searching. In fact, our
"pay-for-positioning" model was one of the first ones used. Now, it
seems that everyone in the search engine and Internet directory business
is using it, such as Google, Yahoo, AOL, and all of the others. In fact,
in a release dated December 17, 2003, "LookSmart Introduces its
Customers to Keywords"

It was reported, "Facing a dire situation as the expiration of its paid
inclusion contract with MSN approaches, paid search player LookSmart
will begin distributing its paid inclusion customers' listings through
its bid-for-placement distribution network."

Companies that believe that they have a great presence on the Internet
because they can type in their company name and get a high return are
simply missing the boat. They have to be found by key word searches,
which leads back to pay-for-placement.

Furthermore, hot off the press 1/7/04, "Yahoo!'s (Quote, Chart) Overture
Services will hand more control to advertisers later this month, letting
them bid for contextual listings independently from search listings.
Received (sic) wisdom in the industry contends that users are less
likely to purchase goods or services after clicking on contextual ads,
which appear on content pages, as compared to those that appear on
search results pages."

We have always believed that more productivity comes from actual search
page results. In the Internet 800 Directory's case, people are accessing
the directory to find a toll free number in order to call for a product
or information. Expanded key words, and priority positioning of those
key words for specific searches, leads to direct inquiries and sales.

One last thought about keyword placement on portals. Sometimes it has
led to a variety of scams and spams. Companies are consistently
spamming, offering guaranteed or number word placement in all the top
search engines. Does that mean that if 100 companies subscribe to their
service and all want number 1 position on "computers", they all get it?
Some companies think that way.

A new one is "keyword ownership" whereby one "buys" a keyword for
guaranteed placement on peoples url bar. First for this to work at all,
the general public must download a plug-in from that company so that
when one types in "computers" the plug-in reveals the company's
customers for that key word. Why would I want to download a plug-in to
see customers' ads? Real Names tried a similar thing a few years ago and
finally went bankrupt after Microsoft withdrew their support.
Choose and use your key words carefully and deal with legitimate
companies for placement.

Steven Jackson - sjackson@inter800.com

Once every second someone searches the Internet 800 Directory looking
for someone to supply them with goods or services.

Will they find you or your competition?

Call 800-299-1879!
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Tip of the Week

Save Paper  - Just print what you need.

Here is a tip you can use with most printers and programs. Anytime you
only to need to print part of a web page or document, here’s what you
do.

1. First, select the area you would like to print. (Hold the left button
down on your mouse and move over the text you want to print)

2. Go to the file menu, select Print

3. When the printer dialog box comes up, click on the "Selection"
option. You should find it under page range. If the button is grayed out
you don’t have any text selected.

4. Click Print.

If you have any tips or shortcuts that you think the readers of this
Newsletter will find useful, send them to chuck@inter800.com

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