If you are a business owner with an online presence, a digital content producer like a film maker or music producer, an author, or someone in communications, then you have got to read this book on the NEW economy titled “FREE”, written by Chris Anderson (the Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine).
With the new media transition going online has completly changed the way digital content like music and video and pictures are consumed, and so far it has been a real challenge for these content makers to make a transition to monetizing on digital media. For example, 95% of all digital music (like what your would find in the iTunes store), that was downloaded last year, was downloaded illegally.
Chris Anderson’s book discusses the new economy and gives brilliant insight into new age consumerism in the wake of Web 2.0, and discusses the “Freemium” business model that has been adopted successfully online, but has actually been around for over a hundred years.
From a business perspective, this book outlines what “Frremium” means in the NEW economy, and gives digital content producers and digital publishers some perspective and insight on what type of business model works in web 2.0 and what type of thinking is required to survive the rapidly evolving and sharing world through emerging and existing technology.
From a communications perspective this book basically translates what we as communications professionals have to bring to the table so that our clients can adapt to the new media world and so that we can do things like apply social media strategy and translate those offerings we freely share on web 2.0 into ROI for our clients.
New thinking is required, and if anyone catching this was wondering what social media strategy and web 2.0 strategy could do and how it could produce ROI and save our digital content from becoming valueless, then this read is a must.
Same goes for all you aspiring digital publishers out there, there air is thin these days in terms of being able to monetize on digital content, so you’ll be getting valuable info info from the Chris Anderson book. This is recommended in a big way for you content makers out there. This is an excellent NEW economy business model for you.
The link below is the free audiobook, download it and pop it on you iPod and listen to it on the way to the office. By the time you get to work, you should be brimming with new ways to monetize on digital content and ways to use web 2.0 strategy and social media strategy in the NEW economy.
Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker was a dynamo speaker this week at the Web 2.0 Summit. She did a great job of drilling home some of the most important facts about internet trends vs. the economy and shared Morgan Stanley research on the internet, mobile, web 2.0, search engines, social media, e-commerce, and more.
Here is the video of Mary Speaking. The facts just pour out of her and you might have watch this twice.
The US has become less relevant in the global economy, internet use continues to grow, search engine are improving, online advertising grew 26% year to year, ecommerce grew 19% year to year, facebook is the seventh busiest site in the world in minutes, web 2.0 growth is massive…..oh my, just watch the video and try to wrap your head around this info.
Here is the Morgan Stanley slide presentation from Monday on internet trends and the economy at the web 2.0 summit.
SEO news in 2009 is not in short supply, most recently Google took a bite out of Page Rank.
Google has cut PageRank data from Webmaster Tools. In a thread on Google Webmaster help, Google employee Susan Moskwa, said this:
“We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true. We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.”
The Web Pro News interview with Google’s Matt Cutts about Page Rank below.
Searchers are going to get more honest results because this should at least quell lame link building techniques in the near future. This also means web 2.0 is growing in SEO importance and searchers are getting closer to more relevant search results.
SEO keeps evolving and getting better. If you are looking for help with your sites SEO make sure you have someone that is keeping on top of the major changes like this one.
SEO with fries = Search Engine Optimization Services | Wordpress Expert Services | Viral Marketing and Digital Content Distribution | Social Media Management | Web 2.0 Strategy | Social Media Marketing | Film & Video Production | Video Post Production | Blogging + Blog Creation | New Media Services & Communications in Toronto & GTA
Top Tier Search Engine Optimization professionals use web 2.0 to make news for ranking fortune 500 brands, public figures and other news makers and “it” factors differently than you may expect. This article defines the Ace in SEO practices, and basically gives you my secret, and the secret of the great SEO professionals.
Actually, I just told you the secret. I mentioned it in the title and I mentioned it in the first paragraph. The Ace friends, is becoming a News Maker and being the “it” factor.
Computer jockey SEO experts usually phrase it differently, that is because they are computer jockeys that have trended so deeply away from human nature and traded the real world in for a bunch of search engine garble on blogs, in social media and cheap parlor tricks, that they have lost sight of what humans are all about.
You read articles that state “Content is King”, that is true. You will read that things like being the “authority” and “trust” and “relationship” building are SEO fundamentals, that is also true. You will read that major search engines punish duplicate content for search rankings, and that is completely the case. You will read that the “H1″ tag is what search engines see as the most important content on your page and it should be used properly. That using”-“ between words instead of “_” is better. You will read that permalinks and keyword rich titles like”yourdomainwithcontent.com/seo-news-ace-secret“are better than generated urls like “yourdomainwithcontent.com/post=id6” and that “alt” and “title” attributes on pictures are hugely beneficial. You will read that placing “noindex” attributes on pages like login and register pages and admin pages is good because it’s not the content people are searching for, drains your “link juice” and adds security. All are true. There are even more fundamentals I could list.
None of the things in the previous paragraph will ever trump News Making, the Ace in SEO. And they will become even less relevant than news making as time goes on. With the emergence of the “Live Stream” in form of things like Twitter, and the fact that Tweets are now showing up in search results, this is really becoming a reality much faster than some may expect.
Let me put it in perspective for you. Search engine engineers are not trying to make search engines more SEO tactics friendly; they are rather using SEO tactics to make search engines more people friendly.
Another perspective is that there are simply new practices that must be considered for good SEO like using Twitter. And while these tactics are not yet considered conventional in some cases, if the desired result of performing SEO is to appear in the search engines and on other web pages, then SEO has simply evolved. With the addition of search to Twitter and the fact millions of users are already search Facebook for offsite references, we have got to accept that using these services is part of SEO. Perhaps, SEO is the wrong name, because the fact is many people would argue that Facebook and Twitter are not “search engines”, yet these web 2.0 juggernauts are becoming increasingly significant in linking to sites, driving traffic and producing references people trust. Fact is, it already has a better name, that is “Web 2.0″ which describes the entire living and breathing ecology of search engines and social media and other interactive online components.
Because search engine algorithms are getting smarter, meaning that they are getting increasingly better at serving up content people want, things like link directory submissions to build PR value are declining in search placement importance. They have been for years. Search engines are becoming more human, because humans make search engines.
The purpose of search engines is to serve up the best results to improve user experience. Real people, not coded web pages, want satisfaction and to get the results they were looking for and results that even increase their awareness of other related content and, related results that educate them about whatever topic the search is for.
Are you doubting me? Let me prove it to you.
Michael Jackson was undoubtedly one of the largest brands on this planet. His legendary publicity antics, his music, his family dynamic and his tribulations fascinated millions of people, probably billions.
Michael Jackson never spent a year out of the news. His music was well catalogued, played everywhere and promoted by the greatest minds in PR (Public Relations) and the music business. His merchandise was sold everywhere, in form of thousands of different products.
Online, Michael as a brand and as a person had been blogged about and chronicled by both professional wordsmiths and amateurs alike. The online content about Michael Jackson had been linked up, listed, search engine optimized to tears.
And when Michael Jackson passed, every result on the first page of Google was about him passing with the exception of Wikipedia, which was already being updated with the news.
People didn’t search for Michael Jackson on search engines because there was content about him. They searched for Michael Jackson because he fascinated them and his passing was News that interested them.
Another example. In Toronto this year, the Much Music Video Awards (MMVA’s) took place.
Millions of people watched it on TV, read about the awards and Much Music was practically an infomercial about the event leading up to it.
Lot’s of stars turned up, lots PR people stressed over “sound bite” recommendations for the acts they represented, coordinating EPK’s and show staff kept the acts running through the show schedule on time so that every act could get face time.
Yet what made the biggest splash online? Was is some stunning performance? Was it perhaps the award winners? Was it the massive turn out? Nope. Not at all friends. Let me give you a hint, it wasn’t even a musician, it was a blogger. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about yet, here is a kicker, the person is a publicly despised blogger.
I’m writing about Perez Hilton being hit by the Black Eyed Peas manager at an MMVA after party that took place at Cobra nightclub in Toronto. Read the whole story here.
Now some of you SEO experts reading this are thinking this guy is full of beans. And that is was good old fashioned SEO fundamentals that got those Michael Jackson links on the first page of Google results, and that only the top bloggers scored the best real estate in search results for the MMVA after party debacle. Yup, your right, kind of, unless of course you get jobs like me and understand brands and retail friends in which case you may already know where I’m going with this.
Michael Jackson was a brand, something you could buy into. Same with the MMVA’s (they sell commercials). Same with Black Eyed Peas. Same with Perez Hilton (he sells advertising, words and his persona).
Those brands have various ways consumers can buy into them; they have things like affiliate programs and retailers attached to them on thousands of well ranked channels. Not just one website with really amazing SEO. All of those brands value something called “brand awareness”. Today’s web 2.0 environment (if you don’t understand web 2.0 start reading Gerd Leonard, the media futurist who consults for major labels and even Google) is about getting connected and connecting the web. Computer Jockey SEO professionals miss the boat philosophically, starting with fact they even call it “link building”, so passé.
The smartest SEO professionals were not out there writing blog pages, twittering like tools or wasting their time when these News flashes happened, they were thinking and researching their clients lists, sending private emails, texts and making phone calls letting their clients know now is the time to focus their selling, retailing and marketing efforts on unique products and services that were related to the brands making the News. In many cases they were the news makers, and the blogging and Twitter use was a secondary product performed to support the news they were creating and releasing. They were not out there doing traditional keyword research, they were sending press releases or encouraging PR professionals to hit the wires with smart headlines that attracted bloggers, Twitter users and the like web 2.0 community to link up their stories and headlines with related brand products. The smartest SEO professionals make their clients millions of dollars every time related News fit to make top headlines hits. The best SEO pros let the web 2.0 world do it for us and take advantage of the news. The best SEO’s take advantage of the news, rely on user generated content and follow the trends. Perosnally, I only call it SEO for marketing reasons, I’m pretty quick to inform people of the fact I primarily consider myself a web 2.0 professional and my “link building” methods are just called web 2.0. and rely on user generated content being produced from the information (ex. Press Releases) our clients give us to send out, link to and optimize.
Top level search engine optimization relies on an ecosystem of intelligent media professionals including Advertising Agencies, Magazines, Bloggers, Public Relations and Communications companies, Agents, Managers and Marketing Directors.
Can good top tier SEO be done if you have real news but no money to pull it off? Yes. The reason is that Advertising agencies can be slow moving large beasts. Some are simply dinosaurs. And some are already brilliantly making the transition in new media. Some public relations people are still not up to speed on what’s available to them (the best ones are all in on the game), and in my experience they can be very nimble and fast acting if they are good. But like any profession, there are those who are still those hanging onto to a fading past and relying on dated communication methods because it was once a tried and true method. Bloggers are still easy to reach out to, but amateur-ish. Agents and managers can be hard to reach, stand offish and in some cases unapproachable, often working against the client with the exception of a few great ones, and Marketing Directors, brilliant as some may be, have to answer to a board of directors whose operating procedures may not be nimble enough to jump on the news. Also standards for producing content have fallen in recent years (ex. Average Joe YouTube video popularity or Leno moving to a 8PM slot).
I imagine the communications profession won’t take too much longer to optimize itself to the new world web 2.0 communications. But right now there are still unique and phenomenal ways the “average joe” can make a mark.
If you are planning to make the news because you have good content and important information that you want to share, and you are doing it with few resources, you are going to have to plan well ahead of time, which is no easy task. You are going to have to time the release and probably pre-produce things like press releases, blog posts, emails, videos, pictures, text messages, print media etc. All of those things should be well tagged and labeled with well-written copy . Your news distribution portals and sites should be preselected, and you should have the various submission information and formatting ready to go.
If you have somewhat of a budget to work with you should probably find a great PR person or firm, before you spend your dollars on an SEO firm or SEO freelancer if you are not sure about how to shop for one. In Toronto alone there are several brilliant PR people and firms ready to help you (sorry guys, you are not getting my link juice). Beyond an education in communications (which is not required in my opinion), they have real experience dealing with brands and news. They know where to publish press releases, how to produce enticing copy and they know about where to look for web 2.0 strategy like SEO. The best ones will likely have things like Clio Awards or Cannes Lions award in their resume. The shady ones are fairly easy to spot because they have no good work on the shelf.
Personally, I talk to clients about the world of SEO and the basics of search engine placement in the context of the real world, I don’t flood them with technical mumbo jumbo to appear smarter, and I tell them all that SEO is very simply to achieve and learn about if they are using great tools like Wordpress as a CMS or WP as a Blog. I tell them because this because it is true, heck, in one simple paragraph above I basically gave them 75% of the fundamentals. I always offer to teach or explain what I mean and am prepared to show examples. You’d think that costs me work, just giving it away. Quite the contrary. Clients come because I get past the BS immediately. In the SEO profession honesty and a real desire to provide help works better than any pitch. By nature I like sharing, being kind, helping people and being honest. That is why it was easy to stop being a commercial producer for me and to make the transition to doing SEO and Web 2.0. I can’t summarize how rewarding it is when my clients see the results. All of them have used someone else, and they come to me with work, sometimes just for advice, but when they are with me they are there because I am giving them something of value constantly. If you are an SEO professional reading this, you may have been through the whole pitch thing with potential clients. Stop pitching, stop showing off, and if you’re capable, start sharing and relating, start teaching, start really learning about what and who your client is so that you can speak to them about there interests and goals. Do that so you can create a solution that is unique enough to rock the Casbah for your clients search engine placement. I swear, if you are good at SEO, creative, honest and take that advice your ratio for success will improve.
If you are just shopping around for services don’t settle for cookie cutter services. You are unique, your brand is precious to you and your solution must be unique. Incorporating Web 2.0 is crucial, and today I believe it accounts for more than 50% of your final results.
Never forget, you do get what you pay for. The diagram below shows you the “triangle” that can be applied to so many things in life, including choosing how to go about making news and hiring SEO and PR professionals in Toronto.
SEO with fries = Search Engine Optimization Services | Wordpress Expert Services | Viral Marketing and Digital Content Distribution | Social Media Management | Web 2.0 Strategy | Social Media Marketing | Film & Video Production | Video Post Production | Blogging + Blog Creation | New Media Services & Communications in Toronto & GTA
Before performing SEO link building by doing link directory submissions in the second half of 2009, or hiring someone to do it for you, you should know that it is not what it was even in the first quarter of 2009. It’s changed, it keeps changing and it’s important to recognize what some SEO services and freelancers are doing can actually hurt your PR on many key terms.
Who says so? Matt Cutts from Google. So I think I’ll just take his word for it. Here is a video from Matt answering some questions about Directory listings.
One of the most important directories to get listed used to be DMOZ. It’s still up there, but no where near what it used to be in terms of search engine importance. It’s the open directory project by Yahoo and Google (yes, they work together here), it can take up to several months to get listed, so it’s important to do it right the first time by submitting a keyword rich, efficient listing in the proper category. It’s important because DMOZ does reject listings, which is why it’s a good one.
One of the biggest misconceptions and abuses in the SEO business is the thinking that listing on several directories is a good thing. In Toronto alone I found more than 20 SEO services that offered Link Directory url submission services and link building services that promised thousands of listings, some for as little as $75.00. Just think about that for a moment. How is that possible? Is it really good? Is it the bargain of a lifetime?
Here are your answers friends.
Firstly, listing on directories is as much about getting found as it is about helping search engines get smarter so that users searches become more relevant and the user experience is improved. Just like old school business, the customer comes first, and in this case the customer is the person that is performing the search using a search engine like Yahoo or Google for a keyword phrase. Unlike oldschool business, search engines are not phone books, they are way smarter, only give about 10-20 results per page and can punish your site for abusing directories.
Matt Cutts clearly tells you in the video above that Google (The search engine with the lion share of the global search market) considers Page Rank (PR) value when evaluating the links between websites. The truth is all 3 major search engines do that, and some of the smaller ones like ASK do to. That PR value is counted between 0 and 10, 0 being the lowest and 10 being perfect. And here is the kicker, I’ve seen plenty of amazing sites, ranked well for many terms, that have a PR value of 0. That’s what changed in search engines, even PR value has been limited in search engine ranking because search is getting more advanced by the day.
Have you ever heard the expression “you are the company that you keep”? Page Rank value can be defined pretty much the same way. PR is determined by relevancy, and relevancy is determined by keyword search terms that link similar websites or contain links to websites that come up in relevant searches.
For example, a shop that sells car audio and that lists itself on a link directory that specializes in automotive, or has a well developed category with links to quality automotive sites (or sites that the car audio shop wants to compete with), or offers similar listings dedicated to automotive and automotive accessories (like car audio), and has a decent PR value, is better than the car audio shop simply listing itself in a directory that has a potpourri of business listings that are not automotive related.
Like man, all website directories are not created equal.
Back to Matt Cutts video, there have been a slew of directories that simply popped up, and SEO spammers (people selling bogus SEO services, which there is no shortage of) are largely responsible for the production of these lame duck directories.
The major search engines are onto to these friends, and listing on them can dilute your PR significantly. The reason being that many of these have 0 PR, are run by spammers and simply do not provide quality links, accepting anyone that comes along submits.
Some directories charge for listings, but that by no means, has any significance in terms of Page Rank. You can be charged money to list on a directory that will negatively affect your PR.
Some bloggers have compiled a massive list of website directories, and you may have thought you hit the gold mine when you found such a list of link directories for submitting urls. Be very careful before you just blast away listing your blogs, websites and rss feeds on those and remember what Mr. Cutts told you above.
Another aspect to consider in terms of directory listing is the content and links being submitted. That’s right, the content matters, the content is king.
For example, a retail store that sells a wide variety of makeup and beauty product brands that begins to submit directory listings may wish to consider some factors in their listing description like brand names, geography / location of the store, means of retail (ie. Is it brick and mortar? Does it sell online? Is their a catalogue? Types of Payment accepted, etc).
Further, it should consider things like listing products that are “loss leaders”, mentioning products that sell very well, represent the store, etc. Perhaps the store specializes in make up, but also carries a small stock of hair products that are not the major attraction to buyers. Mentioning the hair products in the directory listing may not be beneficial, and focusing on the key retail items and services should be a priority.
The seriously important part is being unique. Slogan aside, all directory listings should be unique! That’s right, they should not have the same descriptions (ie. identical phrasing)! Major search engines will actually punish you for that. Again, Mr. Cutts tells you that above. It’s better to have five directory listings on good directories with unique and well-written descriptions that focus on key elements of your business, then it is to have a 100 identical listings on various link directories.
Your answer to whether it’s possible to list on thousands of directories for better SEO is no. Your answer to whether it’s possible to list in thousands of link directories is yes, and the answer to whether it’s good is no.
How to Choose an SEO Pro for Directory Listing
When choosing a person or firm to perform directory listings for you, stay away from those promising thousands of submissions (especially if each submission is going to be identically worded). Remember that good Search Engine Optimization is about ranking for many related and relevant keyword terms, not just one term, like a business name. Forget about hiring someone from another city or region, especially if you’re a small business, and don’t expect good results from someone who is not going to do research on your business. The best SEO services and freelancers really do their homework, your not paying for quantity, your paying for quality, and your paying to rank on several terms.
Unlike most SEO services in Toronto and the GTA, I don’t charge for a specific number of listings for example, I charge for my time which involves researching the business and understanding what customers are looking for. I delve into marketing, I learn the brands, I ask about what’s selling and study the competition. That’s how it’s done friends, forget bulk buys and pay to have it done right.
Personally, I know I’m fast, and it still takes me a lot of work to cook up the best SEO solutions, finding the right directories and writing solid descriptions that help clients rank on several keyword terms. Could I do it for $75? No way, I enjoy eating everyday and my landlord shows up once a month. The purpose of hiring someone like me is to make more money at your end, and the work I do makes businesses money, lots of it, so why on earth would I as a good SEO professional, agree to help make you thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for $75, even a few hundred. It doesn’t make sense, and you should really consider that when you are out there shopping for SEO Services in Toronto or anywhere else to perform directory listings. You really do get what you pay for, and after spending so much time, effort and money on your business why would you choose to skimp on the thing that will bring you the most customers?
ally, I can do SEO on any website, but I specialize in Wordpress SEO. I’m not like “Denny’s” or “TGI Friday’s” in terms of SEO with a bit of everything on the menu , I’m more like “Morton’s” (the steak house), that just does one thing very well, SEO on WP. You should be looking for a person that specializes in your CMS or web environment, because directory listing is far more valuable when optimized with your web page. On the occasions I take non-wordpress jobs I only do it when there is another webmaster present that knows the modules, plugins and other facets of the web environment inside and out.
Asking for references is what has opened the door for poor and unethical SEO (not Black hat) freelancers and services, although it’s a very necessary part of doing business. Let me explain.
Any person, amateur or professional can do research on competitors websites. It’s as simple as right clicking on a competitors website and selecting “view source” (just look for the “meta”), or using some tools (like SEO Chats SEO Tools online) that can determine things like “keyword density” to mine keyword occurrences on a domain and display the term rankings across major search engines.
Because of that, companies that are competing for keywords organically want to hire a person that ran successful competitors SEO campaigns. This is simply unethical in my opinion. If I’m hired by a lipstick manufacturer to rock the Casbah on search engines for lipstick, I’m not about to take all that work and just give it to the next lipstick manufacturer because someone else paid me first. Sure, I like money, but I also like return business, and I never forget who was smart enough to hire me first. I’m also not about to tell you who my clients are so some other SEO professional or service can just retrace my steps and outrank my client, the person who paid me.
How do I get jobs without a portfolio? I do a live audition. I get about 90% of the jobs I audition for because I prove I can build quality links using organic solutions like social media. You should be looking for someone that does the same thing if you want to rank highly for many terms organically, and for long time. I do not get every job because some people find someone cheaper, and I do loose work to better SEO’s.
Those who won’t let me audition my talents, tend to not hire me. I don’t promise I can sell something that no one wants. Instead, I can only promise I will open the doors for content to circulate. If the content is not up to par, sorry I can’t do anything to force people to read it or view it. Many SEO pro’s promise results no matter what. MMMM, so they must be using some secret method of mind manipulation where users view and interact with poor and weak content? Don’t believe the hype. Your content needs to be good. An SEO’s job should be to implement some fundamental good practices and open portals of interaction like social media, comments and well linked pages.
I also blog on several sites and give plenty of free advice and provide solid references for tools and resources that can be used, like this article. I do SEO because I love it, and I use Wordpress because it’s the best CMS for about 95% of projects and the community is simply amazing. Your looking for someone that loves this, obsesses over it (possibly dreaming in meta-land) and blogs about their knowledge. The blogging thing is important, because practice and testing different elements on live servers with no fear of failure is the only way an SEO pro is really made. You can’t master SEO reading about it, you can’t learn what works best without making mistakes, and you can’t be a pro if you are not constantly updating your skills. For the record, I have been a complete screw up in the past, and proudly admit it because in the wisdom of Teddy Rosevelt “The man who never makes a mistake, is the man who does nothing”.
When it comes to SEM (Search Engine Marketing), that’s another story. Providing references is a must, and there is no excuse for not doing so. It’s not what I do specifically, but I know enough that a good SEM pro will save you money by being efficient and score you the best keywords. SEM pros are often not really SEO pro’s, and their understanding of link directory submissions may not be up to par. Stick with the SEO wizards for link directory advice. Stick with SEM pros for your interactive advertising, and as always, don’t buy into the “I can do both line” too quickly. There is far too much too learn, and too much that changes almost daily for anyone person to do it all. While I can do both, I’ve met better SEM pros, and that is what I tell clients. Mind you, I’m always willing to learn, and would love to learn from a master.
Link Directories are important, and valuable, but true link building is about providing quality content (remember content is king friends) and building relationships with other non-directory site owners that want to link to your website because you are the authority, have the best products, provide value or entertain is what real SEO and PR is about.
In closing, if you are just starting out, only do a few listings, and write unique descriptions that feature keywords relevant to your site. On a scale of of 1 to 10, link directories are about a 1.5.
Content is King. Relationships are Queen friends. The Ace, is another article that doesn’t interfere with the U2 concert tonight.
Online it’s Mob Rules friends, so aim to be the head of the Mob.
SEO with fries = Search Engine Optimization Services | Wordpress Expert Services | Viral Marketing and Digital Content Distribution | Social Media Management | Web 2.0 Strategy | Social Media Marketing | Film & Video Production | Video Post Production | Blogging + Blog Creation | New Media Services in Toronto & GTA
“FREE” audio book by WIRED mag’s Chris Anderson for download
If you are a business owner with an online presence, a digital content producer like a film maker or music producer, an author, or someone in communications, then you have got to read this book on the NEW economy titled “FREE”, written by Chris Anderson (the Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine).
With the new media transition going online has completly changed the way digital content like music and video and pictures are consumed, and so far it has been a real challenge for these content makers to make a transition to monetizing on digital media. For example, 95% of all digital music (like what your would find in the iTunes store), that was downloaded last year, was downloaded illegally.
Chris Anderson’s book discusses the new economy and gives brilliant insight into new age consumerism in the wake of Web 2.0, and discusses the “Freemium” business model that has been adopted successfully online, but has actually been around for over a hundred years.
From a business perspective, this book outlines what “Frremium” means in the NEW economy, and gives digital content producers and digital publishers some perspective and insight on what type of business model works in web 2.0 and what type of thinking is required to survive the rapidly evolving and sharing world through emerging and existing technology.
From a communications perspective this book basically translates what we as communications professionals have to bring to the table so that our clients can adapt to the new media world and so that we can do things like apply social media strategy and translate those offerings we freely share on web 2.0 into ROI for our clients.
New thinking is required, and if anyone catching this was wondering what social media strategy and web 2.0 strategy could do and how it could produce ROI and save our digital content from becoming valueless, then this read is a must.
Same goes for all you aspiring digital publishers out there, there air is thin these days in terms of being able to monetize on digital content, so you’ll be getting valuable info info from the Chris Anderson book. This is recommended in a big way for you content makers out there. This is an excellent NEW economy business model for you.
The link below is the free audiobook, download it and pop it on you iPod and listen to it on the way to the office. By the time you get to work, you should be brimming with new ways to monetize on digital content and ways to use web 2.0 strategy and social media strategy in the NEW economy.
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