EBay is facing a backlash from its users in the form of a global boycott on May 1
Founded in 1995, eBay last year generated £3.8 billion in revenue. However, president and chief executive John Donahoe, who joined the company in March this year, has implemented a number of changes that have made users so disgruntled they have resorted to boycotting the service for one day.
Previously, sellers were able to leave comments about buyers. Under Donahoe's new rules, however, sellers can only leave positive but not negative or neutral feedback. Although some users are concerned that these changes will make it difficult to alert other users to fraudulent or malicious buyers, eBay claims it will make it easier for sellers to report 'bad' buyers and will remove unfair feedback.
[ Learn more about the changes made to eBay's policies and standards, and sellers' reactions to those changes. ]
And while users have seen listing fees reduced, the fee eBay charges on completion of a sale has risen to 7.25 percent of the total sale price, from 5.25 percent.
"We are a marketplace founded on trust. If people have a bad experience on our site, caused by a poor seller, then they will no longer use the site. The changes we announced recently are unashamedly focused on protecting buyers," an eBay spokesman said .
Ebay have to remember that without sellers the customers will have less choice and will altermately leave!! And when the buyers do leave so will the rest of the sellers.
The importance for professional ebay sellers to own a highly effective ecommerce website must be more important than ever.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Touch Local do not make guarantee's
After my earlier article about saving money online through ineffective advertising companies a touch local representative contacted me asking for details and that they wished to sort out the problem. Alas after giving them the said details not further correspondence has been made.
So i thought that i should contact them to see what had happened, It seems that the company doesn't guarantee its service, which is not mentioned is their sales pitch. Quite simply they fail to recognise that responsibility should be to supply what the sales team say. The need for telephone sales team is obviously key to their success as they use this as a way of wriggling out of giving value for money.
Expect to pay £1 per click from Touch local, whilst this can be obtained much cheaper by using adwords without the dumb telephone calls or devious tactics.
Alternatively go for some good website optimisation and a seo package as it will save you ££££ in the long run.
So i thought that i should contact them to see what had happened, It seems that the company doesn't guarantee its service, which is not mentioned is their sales pitch. Quite simply they fail to recognise that responsibility should be to supply what the sales team say. The need for telephone sales team is obviously key to their success as they use this as a way of wriggling out of giving value for money.
Expect to pay £1 per click from Touch local, whilst this can be obtained much cheaper by using adwords without the dumb telephone calls or devious tactics.
Alternatively go for some good website optimisation and a seo package as it will save you ££££ in the long run.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Women to shine on Yahoo
Yahoo Shine, the new website for women, hopes to attract an audience by bringing content straight from the magazine rack to the web.
Yahoo has reached deals with major publishers like Hearst Magazines (Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping), Conde Nast (Glamour, Allure) and Time Inc. (In Style) to provide original copy and videos to the site, as well as interactive blogs, all in the hopes of attracting the female 25-54-year-old demographic.
Brandon Holley, editor in chief of Yahoo Lifestyles, told MediaWeek that Shine will feature extra doses of sass and humor, separating it from the rest of the women’s website pack.
“I looked at men’s magazines and the way they’re presenting things, and hopefully that smart, provocative humor comes out,” Holley said.
Yahoo drew 40 million female visitors in February, but it ranked sixth among health and fitness sites and seventh among cooking sites, according to Nielson Online data.
Yahoo has reached deals with major publishers like Hearst Magazines (Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping), Conde Nast (Glamour, Allure) and Time Inc. (In Style) to provide original copy and videos to the site, as well as interactive blogs, all in the hopes of attracting the female 25-54-year-old demographic.
Brandon Holley, editor in chief of Yahoo Lifestyles, told MediaWeek that Shine will feature extra doses of sass and humor, separating it from the rest of the women’s website pack.
“I looked at men’s magazines and the way they’re presenting things, and hopefully that smart, provocative humor comes out,” Holley said.
Yahoo drew 40 million female visitors in February, but it ranked sixth among health and fitness sites and seventh among cooking sites, according to Nielson Online data.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Google Wants National Wi-Fi free of charge
Nationwide WiFi for Free. Yes your ears are hearing rights and its not a figment of your imagination
Google is lobbying the FCC for some of the wireless spectrum that will be freed next year when television will cease analog transmission. Google’s plan? “Wi-Fi on steroids.” Late Friday, Google submitted a six-page letter to the FCC outlining processes and tests to avoid interference on the frequencies in question. Google also promised to reserve some frequencies not for wireless Internet and provide free tech support for people using their Wi-Fi. Presumably, this would dovetail well with Android-enabled handsets, due out later this year.
This year’s wireless spectrum auction sold license to frequencies formerly occupied by UHF transmissions (ultra high frequency) television channels 52 - 69. The ultra high and very high frequencies used by television channels 2 through to 51 will no longer be used after February 17, 2009. Google planned to deliver sometime in Q4 2009.
If Google succeeds in convincing the FCC to sign on, there will be some major concerns with free Google WiFi, and rightfully so. Aaron Wall points out that as an ISP, Google will have access to massive amounts of user data that they could use to influence SERPs. And if they did provide wireless for free, many people would probably be willing to part with this information in exchange for Internet access, which was probably costing them anywhere from $10 to $100 a month.
There are also some concerns over the wireless network itself: would connections be secure enough? Would they be fast enough to make it worth the while of heavy Internet users? Would anyone but the Extreme Internet users care if their connections were slower, but free?
Connection prices though are expected to drop significantly over the ment few years as competition hots up and the likely intervention of mobile phone companies adding to this would there be any need for free Wifi? When the possibility of a fast service comes at a low cost. Although this would bring prices crashing down much faster.
This also illistrates that the internet has some way to go before it is at full strength and businesses need to start getting there websites sorted out by a good Web Developer soon for this revolution.
Web design and development
Professional Website Design for your business is essential to Promote your company especially now that more and more customers search online for their needs. The computer 5 years ago was limited to a few, but now can be found in many households, it's just a matter of time before everyone has one just like television.
Clear, Clean sites that are fully optimised and can gain good positions on the search engines will bring your company those fresh enquires, but it seems many establish companies do not understand the full concept and power of the Internet. This may in the future create a new stream of young companies with Internet savvy and vision though to the forefront of business, whilst the old dinosaur flags behind dismissing it or not wanting to understand it, but with hindsite finding themselves unable to catch up.
A professional image, creative design and simple to use website are effective websites. But the use of professional Website Developer who have good Search engine Optimisation skills "that can get your website seen" is imperative to achieve online success, knowing that your developer has achieved this an a grand way is the only way that you will be sure that they can do it for you.
But you also need to ask the question about the company/s they promoted, "What amount of investment was used to achieve it".
If for example it was Barclay's bank then you will know that they would have invested heavily to achieve the results.
Many companies fail online because the fear changing developers or talking to others about there targets, this is a mistake and a good developer should achieve results with existing websites which give good web presence within 12 months. So if your website is much older than this you do have to ask yourself is it time for a change.
One main reason companies should be taking the Internet seriously is, because with the possibility of a recession looming and existing customers tightening there belts now would be a good time to reach out further and acquire extra contacts or sales though new customers, this would lessen the impact of this and would leave companies who use this approach with a stronger hand when the better times come again.
It once again illustrates the need for good Web Development companies that can achieve great results. There's no shortage on advice regarding what people should do to improve a web site's position in the search engine listings. It is easy to become confused when you consume all the information that is available, because some people agree with others while some totally disagree and offer other advice.
You should be extremely suspicious of any advice given by someone that tells you to use search engine submissions, employ traffic exchanges, or use FFA sites. That is so out of date it really is not funny.
Clear, Clean sites that are fully optimised and can gain good positions on the search engines will bring your company those fresh enquires, but it seems many establish companies do not understand the full concept and power of the Internet. This may in the future create a new stream of young companies with Internet savvy and vision though to the forefront of business, whilst the old dinosaur flags behind dismissing it or not wanting to understand it, but with hindsite finding themselves unable to catch up.
A professional image, creative design and simple to use website are effective websites. But the use of professional Website Developer who have good Search engine Optimisation skills "that can get your website seen" is imperative to achieve online success, knowing that your developer has achieved this an a grand way is the only way that you will be sure that they can do it for you.
But you also need to ask the question about the company/s they promoted, "What amount of investment was used to achieve it".
If for example it was Barclay's bank then you will know that they would have invested heavily to achieve the results.
Many companies fail online because the fear changing developers or talking to others about there targets, this is a mistake and a good developer should achieve results with existing websites which give good web presence within 12 months. So if your website is much older than this you do have to ask yourself is it time for a change.
One main reason companies should be taking the Internet seriously is, because with the possibility of a recession looming and existing customers tightening there belts now would be a good time to reach out further and acquire extra contacts or sales though new customers, this would lessen the impact of this and would leave companies who use this approach with a stronger hand when the better times come again.
It once again illustrates the need for good Web Development companies that can achieve great results. There's no shortage on advice regarding what people should do to improve a web site's position in the search engine listings. It is easy to become confused when you consume all the information that is available, because some people agree with others while some totally disagree and offer other advice.
You should be extremely suspicious of any advice given by someone that tells you to use search engine submissions, employ traffic exchanges, or use FFA sites. That is so out of date it really is not funny.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Facebook is about to pass Myspace in the traffic ranks
Facebook is about to pass Myspace in the traffic ranks according to comScore's estimate of unique visitors per day, which increased for both social networks: Facebook was up 2.6%, from January to February, while MySpace grew 3%.MySpace
Total Uniques: 68 million. Down 1%
Average Daily Visitors: 17.7 million. Up 3%
Average Minutes Per Visitor: 242.9 Up 19%
Facebook
Total Uniques: 32.4 million. Down 4.2%
Average Daily Visitors: 8.6 million. Up 2.6%
Average Minutes Per Visitor: 161.3 Down 6.2%
But things look really interesting when you analylise the 2 websites international traffic. Facebook continues to close on MySpace's visitor total: At 100.7 million unique visits in January, Facebook is now about 8% smaller than MySpace' 109.3 million. A year ago, MySpace's worldwide lead was nearly 4 time that amount.
In terms of unique visitors per day, Facebook has already eclipsed MySpace. It did this in November. Its easy to see why Facebook keeps playing up its international growth plans, which have only just started to kick in.
Total Uniques: 68 million. Down 1%
Average Daily Visitors: 17.7 million. Up 3%
Average Minutes Per Visitor: 242.9 Up 19%
Total Uniques: 32.4 million. Down 4.2%
Average Daily Visitors: 8.6 million. Up 2.6%
Average Minutes Per Visitor: 161.3 Down 6.2%
But things look really interesting when you analylise the 2 websites international traffic. Facebook continues to close on MySpace's visitor total: At 100.7 million unique visits in January, Facebook is now about 8% smaller than MySpace' 109.3 million. A year ago, MySpace's worldwide lead was nearly 4 time that amount.
In terms of unique visitors per day, Facebook has already eclipsed MySpace. It did this in November. Its easy to see why Facebook keeps playing up its international growth plans, which have only just started to kick in.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Unique content for Your website...tips
With any website good unique content is required that engrosses the reader but also encourages them to look deeper into your content and hopefully use your services or for the more difficult tasks will become confident in what you say to purchase a product or service.
Unique content though has had me thinking back to all those times at school, when we had to write essays, god did i hate doing that and i was always last to hand in the homework essays... remember what they said you have a, start, middle & finish, it's just the same with unique content it's just an essay on a chosen topic. But here we are a few years later and i'm writing regularly, not that i feel that i'm some kind of expert writer by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it is unique, it just takes practice . The more you practice the better you will get at it ( well i hope i do anyway)... It's so easy online nowadays to just copy and paste but when someone else writes your content you can loose the personality of the website. Its also important to keep your content interesting and relate what you are talking about to different things or different times, this allows you to expand on your topic. I always say that if you take the time to do it people will read it, as you are now. Some people will like it, some won't but as they say "you can't please all the people all the time, but you can please some people some of the time".
This article shows exactly what i mean as it is about a relatively boring subject of "unique content" when i first looked at this an thought what do i say about it suddenly it dawned on me there really isn't a lot to say, as it does what it says on the tin, so to speak. I ended up writing about it in a different way where i'm talking around the subject.
It reminds me of a of something i used to scribble on the blackboard as a kid, it went like this:-
"If you have noticed this notice, you may have noticed that this notice was not worth noticing".
My point is that even the most boring subject have something to say and all the time you will be building up keyword density which can help with website optimisation and from blogs like this helps with links but that's another subject.
Unique content though has had me thinking back to all those times at school, when we had to write essays, god did i hate doing that and i was always last to hand in the homework essays... remember what they said you have a, start, middle & finish, it's just the same with unique content it's just an essay on a chosen topic. But here we are a few years later and i'm writing regularly, not that i feel that i'm some kind of expert writer by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it is unique, it just takes practice . The more you practice the better you will get at it ( well i hope i do anyway)... It's so easy online nowadays to just copy and paste but when someone else writes your content you can loose the personality of the website. Its also important to keep your content interesting and relate what you are talking about to different things or different times, this allows you to expand on your topic. I always say that if you take the time to do it people will read it, as you are now. Some people will like it, some won't but as they say "you can't please all the people all the time, but you can please some people some of the time".
This article shows exactly what i mean as it is about a relatively boring subject of "unique content" when i first looked at this an thought what do i say about it suddenly it dawned on me there really isn't a lot to say, as it does what it says on the tin, so to speak. I ended up writing about it in a different way where i'm talking around the subject.
It reminds me of a of something i used to scribble on the blackboard as a kid, it went like this:-
"If you have noticed this notice, you may have noticed that this notice was not worth noticing".
My point is that even the most boring subject have something to say and all the time you will be building up keyword density which can help with website optimisation and from blogs like this helps with links but that's another subject.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
