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How fast is your broadband?
The Gadget Show on channel 5 is running a ‘How fast is your broadband’ campaign, apparantly to try and get the major ISP’s to give accuarte broadband speeds to customers.

Their broadband speed test has been designed in conjunction with thinkbroadband. It may take a couple of minutes to run, but should give you a very good indication of your home broadband speed – and whether or not you’re getting close to the speeds your ISP has advertised.

We at Direct Submit would encourage ISP’s to give honest and accurate broadband speed information to the customer – removing the infamous ‘up to’ catch all they use when advertisng their services. Here’s hoping…

Internet Marketing by Direct Submit

Social Media Marketing & Advertising Miami
With millions of members sharing information and expressing their preferences every day, social networks are breaking new ground in marketing & targeted advertising. As a result, some marketers are producing impressive results. The question is: are you making the most of this revolution?

Social Media Marketing & Advertising Miami will bring together social media companies, marketers and brands to discuss the latest tools and techniques for running effective social media marketing and advertising campaigns.

This one-day conference held on September 30 offers expert-led guidance on how to engage with customers via advertising and promoted content in social media, including tips on how to maximize the impact of your campaigns, insights into new tools and services, how to monitor and measure the results, and trends to watch out for. This is the ultimate event for anyone interested in social media advertising.

Among the presenters at this one-of-kind conference is Submit Express President and CEO Pierre Zarokian, who will join a group of leading social media marketing experts at the event. Topics covered include the latest high-profile viral marketing campaigns, social networking theory, location-based marketing and tips for writing powerful viral content.

Please visit http://socialmediamarketing.co.uk/socialmarketing&advertisingmiami/ for more information on the show.

Internet Marketing by Direct Submit

Is Twitter the Fastest-Growing Search Engine?
So what is the world’s fastest growing search engine? According to one expert, it isn’t Microsoft Bing or even Google but Twitter. Of course, you need to consider that the source might be a little biased since according to PC Magazine, the proclamation was made by Twitter CEO Biz Stone.

While speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Stone said that Twitter users perform more than 800 million searches on the site each day, a number larger than Yahoo! and Bing combined. Stone said that the high volume of searches proves that Twitter is more than just a social media network.

“That’s been a myth since the beginning,” he said. “We’re much more like an information network or a source of news.”

However, many people are skeptical about Stone’s claims of such high volume of Twitter searches. Robert Andrews of PaidContent.org said that Stone is using an apples-to-oranges way of comparing Twitter to leading search engines since people are searching for different types of content on each type of site.

Another problem, as pointed out by the San Francisco Chronicle, is that Stone is counting automated messages sent by apps like Tweet Deck that “are actually just automated calls those apps send out every few minutes to populate columns users have set up to see tweets on certain topics.”

Internet Marketing by Direct Submit

Is your website Optimised or are you just being Optimistic?

For many businesses the focus when starting out on their Internet campaign is the design of a great looking website, a website that not only looks good but also reflects the right image for the business. However, it is also very important that the company website lists well in the major search engines and many businesses quickly move to measuring the value of their website in terms of the number of visitors to the website. Why, because what is the point of having a great looking website if no one can find it and it attracts only minimal traffic. Businesses quickly become aware that increased levels of traffic can potentially lead to potential for increased sales and market profile.

One thing to consider is that over 80% of all Internet traffic comes from the major search engines with Google, Yahoo and MSN currently responsible for the vast majority of all Internet traffic. With such an overwhelming amount of traffic coming from the search engines, it makes sense to put a lot of effort getting your website noticed.

Regardless of how you measure the success of your website, the bottom line is that to succeed on the Internet you are going to have to bring more visitors that are looking for the information, content and/or products that you are providing.

Internet Marketing by Direct Submit

Bill Limits EU Data Roaming Charges
Greater protection to prevent mobile phone and computer users from running up large data bills when overseas has come into force across the EU.

New rules mean that users will be automatically cut off when their monthly bill for using the internet abroad reaches 50 euros (£41), excluding VAT. Customers will receive a warning when they have used 80% of this limit. They can set their own monthly cut-off point by contacting their provider.

Accessing the internet via your mobile phone while abroad is called “data roaming”.

The move follows cases where people built up massive bills by watching videos or downloading music while abroad. “There will be no more bill shocks for tourists or business travellers surfing the internet with smart phones or laptops while in another EU country,” said the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes.

Internet Marketing by Direct Submit

Government to Axe ‘Unnecessary’ Websites
The government is to conduct a review of all 820 of its websites, Cabinet Minister Francis Maude has announced.

A report by the Central Office of Information has revealed that the government spent £94m on website development and running costs and £32m on web staff in 2009 – 2010.

The UK Trade and Investment website averaged 28,000 users per month but cost over £4m to build said the COI.

Each site visitor cost the government £11.78 according to the figures.

Around 16% of government departments did not know how their own websites were being used by tax payers, and almost a quarter were not aware of the running costs, according to the COI report.

In 2007 the BBC reported that the government was to axe 551 websites, protecting 26 from closure.

Internet Marketing by Direct Submit

China to Get its Own domains
Chinese people should soon find it easier to browse the web as domain names written in Chinese win approval.

Net address overseer Icann has approved the creation of domains that use only Chinese characters.

The decision builds on earlier work to create internationalised domain names (IDNs) using with non-Latin characters.

The first IDNs were for Arabic scripts and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the first to register domains using them.

Icann said firms in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan would soon be issuing domains for people and organisations within their countries that are written with all Chinese scripts.

“One fifth of the world speaks Chinese and that means we just increased the potential online accessibility for roughly a billion people,” said Icann head Rod Beckstrom in a statement.

He said the decision goes some way towards addressing the contradiction that 60% of the net’s users are non-native English speakers yet the dominant language online is English.

This is because when the domain name system was set up addresses, such as the familiar .com and .uk, were written only with Latin characters.

Internet Marketing by Direct Submit

French find E-Mail Passwords in Google Street View Data
Google scooped up sensitive data such as passwords when putting together its Street View service, suggests an early look at the information.

The examination was carried out by French data protection agency CNIL as it decides whether to prosecute the search firm for gathering the data. The data was gathered as Google logged wi-fi hotspots to help it develop location-based services.

Previously, Google said there was “no harm, no foul” in collecting the data.

CNIL, like many other data protection agencies worldwide, asked Google to hand over copies of the data it gathered to find out if privacy laws had been breached. CNIL chairman Alex Turk said Google handed the data to the agency on 4 June following an official request and it was now in the process of combing through the reams of information.

Google said it was working with the French authorities and many others and would delete the information it had gathered if asked. “We have reached out to the data protection authorities in the relevant countries, and are working with them to answer any questions they have,” a Google spokesperson said. “Our ultimate objective is to delete the data consistent with our legal obligations and in consultation with the appropriate authorities,” added the spokesperson.

Google has defended its collection of the data saying it was done “accidentally”. Google boss Eric Schmidt said there was “no harm, no foul” in collecting the snippets of information. “Who was harmed? Name the person,” Mr Schmidt said at during an interview at the company’s annual Zeitgeist conference held in Watford in mid-May.

Internet Marketing by Direct Submit

Follow the Code to Stay Safe Online
The internet opens up a wonderful world of entertainment, opportunity and knowledge. To help your children to enjoy it all safely, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety has developed the Click Clever, Click Safe code.

The code has three simple actions: `Zip it, lock it, Flag it’.

It’s easy to remember when talking to children about online safety and it’s designed to help keep them safe on the internet.

ZIP IT    
Keep your personal stuff private and think about what you say and do online.

BLOCK IT
Block people who send you nasty messages and don’t open unknown links and attachments.

FLAG IT
Flag up with someone you trust if anything upsets you or if someone asks to meet you offline\

TaLk to your kids about the Click Clever, Click Safe code — to help them to enjoy the internet safely.

For advice on internet safety go to www.direct.gov.uk/clickcleverclicksafe

Apple & the IPhone 4 Launch
Apple tried to put the genie back in the bottle at its sold-out Worldwide Developer Conference, WWDC, when it launched the latest version of its iPhone , the iPhone 4.

The problem for the company was that the technology blog Gizmodo had stolen a lot of Apple’s thunder weeks ago when it released a flurry of photos and videos of a prototype of the phone which was left in a bar.

Even though Steve Jobs acknowledged the event indirectly, he refused to utter Gizmodo’s name and tried to imply he wasn’t bothered by the whole affair by joking with the audience “Stop me if you’ve seen this before”. In a bid to raise expectations above those set by the blog, he quipped “Believe me, you ain’t seen this.”