Google and fellow titans Yahoo! and Microsoft dominate the internet search-engine market, which Wales said was already causing some worry among web users. “Right now in the United States in particular we have a really strong concentration of the industry,” Wales said on Thursday at the Global Brand Forum in Singapore.

Industry statistics showed more than 90% of internet searches in the US are done through the three firms, he said. “So a lot of people are really concerned about this … Do we really want all of our traffic, all of our editorial control of the internet all being piped through one, two or three companies?  “I don’t think we do … I think we want to have a broader marketplace than that.”

Wales said Wikia Search will run on an open platform, similar to the principles behind Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopaedia in which entries can be made and edited by anyone with an internet connection.

“All of the existing search engines are proprietary black boxes,” said Wales. “You have no idea how things are ranked and what’s going on.”

With Wikia Search, users “can participate in meaningful ways” when they browse the internet, he said. — AFP

Click on the image to see a clearer version  or read the TechCrunch article here.

I am not sure if hosting passwords online is a very good idea, but the concept resolves quite a few issues I had, especially when one use several computers and has a terrible short term memory like me.

Here’s what they claim to be: “Passpack.com isa Free Online Password Manager. Think of it as a password manager, automatic login and personal vault all in one. With Passpack you can quickly login to websites, as well as organize and store logins and private notes.”

The feedback is pretty impressive, with the big blogs embracing the startup and the overall consensus seems to be that the passwords are actually securely stored in a military grade kind of environment.

In case you are worried, there is always identity theft insurance …

OECD member countries, the European Community and ministers from Chile, Egypt, Estonia, India, Indonesia, Israel, Latvia, Senegal and Slovenia at a meeting in South Korea’s capital, declared their commitment to working together to stimulate innovation, competition and investment in information and communications technology. They aim to build confidence in and secure the future of the Internet economy.

The Seoul Declaration came at the close of the OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy. Participants agreed on the need for governments to work closely with business, civil society and technical experts on policies that promote competition, empower and protect consumers, and expand Internet access and use worldwide.

“Given that this infrastructure has become critical to our economies and societies, we should all engage in developing better, more broad-based, governance arrangements and policies,” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría in the closing session.

He called for a new approach to drawing up these policies. “A more decentralised, networked approach to policy formulation for the Internet economy that includes the active participation of stakeholders.”

From: BusRep.co.za 

The truth is, they all end up very upset because they fail to realize the secret behind the success in Internet Marketing.

Having a website is not a guarantee that your online business will succeed. How will you succeed if people will not realize that your business exist online? The key to Internet marketing is to get your business noticed. An effective way to do this is to build an opt-in list. In fact, most of the people who are already experts in Internet marketing will tell you that building a highly targeted opt in list is the most effective and important tool in Internet marketing. Basically, an opt in list is a list of email addresses of people who have agreed to obtain any kind of information from online businesses like you. The term “opt in” means that you have their permission to send to them whatever newsletters, brochures, or promotions that you have in your online business.

By creating an opt in list, you will be able to maintain solid contact with your previous buyers at the same time boost your sales because of the fact that you have a sure target market always ready to purchase items from you.

So, for people who are not yet aware of the importance of building a highly targeted opt in list and would like to know how to build them, here are some tips that could be very useful.

1. Decide on your niche market or your target market.

It is extremely important to know your target market in order to focus on something. It would be really confusing and time consuming if you will build an opt in list with no particular market in mind.

Moreover, having a niche market would bring more focus on your marketing campaigns and would derive better results because you have direct you emails to people who would most likely be interested in them.

2. Be sure that your selected target market is available in the Internet.

The mere acquisition of a niche market is not a guarantee that you can already start building your opt in list. Since, the concept of opt in list is specifically generated to aid in the growth of the Internet market of a particular entrepreneur, it is important to have a niche market that is available through the Internet.

The concept is basically simple, how can you promote your online business if your niche market is not available in the Internet? Hence, it is extremely important to verify if your target market is available online.

3. Verify if your chosen target market is income-generating market.

Building a highly targeted opt in list will just go to waste if your niche market is not generating any income at all.

Try to verify their income-generating potential through the search engines, wherein you will find some paid ads related to the keywords you have searched. This would only mean that if somebody is willing to pay to advertise focusing on the same target market that you have in mind, chances are, you will be able to reap positive results on your target market.

4. Generate solutions to the problems of your target market by using Internet forum.

Creating this type of forum will initiate the underlying solutions that will answer to most of your target market’s problem.

Through their posts and threads, you will be able to identify your target market’s problem and will be able to come up with a great solution. In turn, it will be very handy when you make your opt in list.

Indeed, the success of an online business or Internet marketing greatly depends on the opt in list. It is where the online businesses could come up with newsletters that would allow them to promote their products at the same time create the need for it. In turn, it will generate more income and make more money.

As they say, money is in the list that’s why most businesses consider opt in list as valuable as gold.

I am now using JungleDisk.com to backup all of my data. JungleDisk.com is a site that hosts an application that lets users back up their files. JungleDisk is powered by Amazon S3 and allows you to upload as many files as you want, there is no limit and no restrictions.

Because it’s powered by Amazon S3, it’s safe to say that the data centre where the files are hosted is here to stay, even if the JungleDisk people go out of business. S3 is amazing and it’s simply a fast and reliable storage system. The data is hosted in multiple data centers around the world for complete redundancy.

Not only it’s redundant but it was painless to install. I simply downloaded the software, set up an Amazon S3 account (if you are an Amazon.com customer, you are a S3 customer), and I was ready to back up my system.

Pricing:
It’s by far the cheaper option out there and the value proposition outbids in my opinion any other competitors.

You need to purchase the software which costs 20$ (once off, unlimited upgrades and can be used on multiple machines) and then you pay on a pay-as-you-go basis for the amount of storage and bandwidth you use ( $0.15 per gigabyte-month of storage used and $0.10/0.18 per gigabyte of data uploaded/downloaded).

Storing 4GB of data and accessing some of the file would only cost $0.68 per month!!!!
(Compared to $5 for most other companies) . Here’s a great post on how cheap S3 is to replace a home server with S3.

Stop using DVDs, or external hard drives to back up your filke, use Amazon S3 with JungleDisk instead, it’s the right thing to do.

PS: I am only blogging this because I feel everyone should know about JD, I wasnt paid for this review!

The quality of the deisigns (mostly logos) is pretty good. I also find the prices offered to be more than fair to the designers.

For those who don’t know what crowsourcing is, here’s the Wikipedia definition: Crowdsourcing is a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call. For example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task, refine an algorithm or help capture, systematize or analyze large amounts of data (see also citizen science). The term has become popular with business authors and journalists as shorthand for the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals. However, both the term and its underlying business models have attracted controversy and criticism.

I would also recommend you to read the book The Wisdom of Crowds (James Surowiecki, 2004) which looks at many aspects of crowd sourcing.
I am going to give 99Design a try to get the Neoaid.com logo designed in the next few weeks

This is NOT a paid review

It seems a debate is brewing in the “Wikipedia-sphere” surrounding the commercialization and the soon-to-be-made profit from the voluntarily written and edited online encyclopedia web site. For the first time, a major publisher has made plans to print out and sell popular articles from the site, leaving many wondering if the content’s writers are being scammed out of royalties to which they are due.

Wikipedia, the Print Edition

A major German publisher, Bertelsmann, has announced plans to print a book called “The One-Volume Wikipedia Encyclopedia,” which goes on sale this September for 19.95 euros (around $32 U.S.). The book will feature some of the year’s most popular articles. Says Dr. Varnhorn, the editor in charge of Bertelsmann’s reference works, in a recent NY Times article, “We think of it as an online encyclopedic yearbook.” A statement that foreshadows the possibility of this book becoming the first of many annually printed editions.

Is this legal? Yes. Apparently, the material on the Wikipedia site is free for use given that you cite Wikipedia as the source. In addition, Bertelsmann will pay the foundation one euro for every copy sold.

Read more

Getting started in affiliate marketing is really quite easy, but too often, many people mistakenly think it’s a lot easier than it actually is. In most cases, the only thing you need to do to join an affiliate program is to fill out a form. That’s the easiest part that there is. But there is still work to be done if you are to be successful.

This guide will guide you though your first steps. Enjoy.

Get the FREE GUIDE here

Pay your tribute by visiting the Hofmann foundation website.