Ping! Zine Issue 67 – Two-Pronged Approach to Marketing Your Budget In 2014 by Ping! Zine Web Hosting Magazine

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70 MILLION CUSTOMERS INFORMATION STOLEN IN TARGET DATA BREACH Popular retailer, Target, has announced via press release that the data breach in December has affected more customers than it originally projected.Following the hack, the company disclosed that 40 million credit and debit card numbers had been stolen. On Friday, Target revealed that those numbers have risen to approximately 70 million individuals. “I know that it is frustrating for our guests to learn that this information was taken and we are truly sorry they are having to endure this,” said

Gregg Steinhafel, chairman, president and chief executive officer, Target. “I also want our guests to know that understanding and sharing the facts related to this incident is important to me and the entire Target team.” According to the press release, customers affected by this breach will have zero liability for the fraudulent charges. Additionally, Target is offering one year free of credit monitoring and identity theft protection. The Minneapolis retailer has lowered its expected fourth quarter financial results by a 4% decline in sales and a significant drop in shares.

NINTENDO WORKING ON NEW DEVICE, FUSION

GOOGLE TO MAKE SMART CONTACT LENS

Nintendo is reportedly working on replacing the Wii U with a new device, the Nintendo Fusion.According to Venture Beat, the new portable device will feature a ARMbased central processing unit and Adreno 420-based graphics processing units from Advanced Micro Devices. Additionally, Fusion console will have 3GB of main memory, 2GB for games, a 64-bit IBM custom power CPU, and AMD custom Radeon HD RX 200 GPU. “What we know is that ‘Nintendo Fusion’ is a possible name that Nintendo is using for their next-gen hardware,” stated Nintendo News writer, Kevin McMinn. Other rumored names are Fusion DS and Fusion Terminal. Nintendo spokesman did not comment on the rumor stating that Nintendo doesn’t comment on rumor or speculation.

Google is looking to transform the way diabetics measure their glucose levels.In a press release published Thursday, Google announced that they are testing a prototype of a contact lens in order to find a less invasive method of measuring glucose levels than finger pricking. The lenses would measure the glucose in tears by using “miniaturized electronic” such as chips and sensors. “We’re now testing a smart contact lens that’s built to measure glucose levels in tears using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor that are embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material. We’re testing prototypes that can generate a reading once per second,” stated Google via press release. The tech giant is also looking for ways to incorporate LED lights into the smart contacts so that it could light up when the wearers glucose levels go above or below certain levels.

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MICROSOFT TARGETING APRIL 2015 RELEASE DATE FOR WINDOWS 9 Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 9, is set to be unveiled at the company’s annual Build Conference in April, reports Windows blogger, Paul Thurrott. Codenamed “Threshold”, the system will bring all of Microsoft’s OS platforms together, including the Xbox One, Windows, and Windows Phone. The popular Start menu feature is also included in the new operating system. “This is the release my sources previously pegged as being the one that will see the return of the Start menu and the ability to run Metro-style apps on the desktop alongside desktop applications,” writes Thurrott in his blog. In order to “distance itself from the Windows 8 debacle,” Microsoft is believed to rename the system to Windows 9. Although the reveal of “Threshold” is rumored for April 2014, a release isn’t expected till a year later in April 2015.

NEW HTC ONE, “M8″, RUMORED TO BE RELEASED MARCH 2014 The speculation concerning HTC’s latest smartphone suggest we could see the device arrive in as little as two months.According to a report from CNet, the device will feature a 5 inch display screen with 3GB RAM, Snapdragon 800 or 805 processor, and Android 4.4 KitKat. Additionally, the smartphone, codenamed M8, will employ a twin-sensor rear Ultrapixel camera to offer better focus and depth of field to the overall image quality of pictures and a fingerprint reader, similar to Apple’s iPhone 5S. The release of the new HTC One has not been confirmed yet, but many believe it could be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress show in February, with a release date of March 2014.

YAHOO AD MALWARE ATTACK AFFECTED MORE PEOPLE THAN ORIGINALLY REPORTED While many people were out celebrating the start of a new year, Yahoo was recovering from a massive data breach.It was reported at the end of December that hackers sent out malicious malware via advertisements on the site, which reportedly affected millions of users. According to The Washington Post, Yahoo originally stated that the incident took place on December 31st, but now it is said that the hack occurred between Dec. 27- Jan. 3. Additionally, earlier reports claimed “users in North America, Asia Pacific, and Latin America were not served these advertisements and were not affected,” but Yahoo now says that while most of the malware was exposed to European sites, “a small fraction of users outside the region may have been impacted as well.” Around 27,000 computers were infected per hour from the exploits used by the hackers.

PS4 OUTSELLS THE XBOX ONE BY OVER A MILLION UNITS In the war between gaming console, it seems as if Sony’s PS 4 is taking the lead, with over 1 million units sold at the end of 2013.At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier today, Sony revealed that its next-gen console sold 4.2 million units, where Microsoft’s Xbox One had only sold 3 million consoles. “The momentum of the PS4 system keeps getting stronger and we couldn’t be more thrilled gamers worldwide are enjoying the incredibly immersive gaming experiences along with deep social capabilities and entertainment provided by our network ,” stated Andrew House, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “After a remarkable launch, we look forward to bringing even more exciting content and continuing to explore the power of the PS4 system by adding new features and services, including PlayStation Now, in 2014.” It’s uncertain why the PS4 has gotten such staggering numbers compared to the Xbox One, it could be because it is $100 cheaper or that it was released a week earlier, but either way, these are big numbers for both Sony and Microsoft.

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TWO-PRONGED APPROACH TO MARKETING YOUR BUDGET IN 2014 T

by Garen Arnold

here are so many different ways you can promote your business online. There is no one tactic that will work for every business online; it's up to you to find out what will work best for your business. Some of them are highly effective, and some are as effective as flushing your money down the toilet. Chances are you don't want to waste your money. So this article will help you in determining which strategies you want to implement. There are some tactics which will provide an instant ROI. While there are other tactics which require several months of preparation and planning, before seeing any return on investment. A lot of businesses will use a two pronged approach to marketing their business online. When you focus on both short term ROI and longterm ROI; you will have a lot better success in succeeding with your marketing in 2014. Â

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Quick ROI Marketing

Adwords One of the most effective ways to get targeted traffic to your website is by using Google Adwords. But be careful, because if you don't know what you’re doing, you can easily throw away thousands of dollars each day. While there are countless articles, books, and training courses available online, there are also countless horror stories. There is a pretty big learning curve for fully mastering Google Adwords. You can certainly lose a substantial amount of money online if you fail to use Adwords correctly. Common Adwords Mistakes • Failing to put your keywords in your titles and adcopy. • Failing to deactivate "content network". If you leave this checked your ads will run on thousands of sites which will drastically decrease your CTR (click through rate). • Targeting way to many keywords. Remember you want to drill down and not just have as many keywords targeted on your Adwords campaigns. Don't just use broad keywords. Make sure you use "exact match". • Failing to notice what your competition is doing. • Sending your visitors to your homepage. You should focus on sending them to a custom made landing page where you can split test. There are number of free Wordpress plugins you can install to help you with split testing. • Forgetting about tracking your campaigns altogether. Make sure you use the conversion code. • Dumping a majority of your marketing money in Adwords campaings the first couple weeks. Tips For Being Successful With Adwords • Pay attention to your quality score. The better you get your quality score the less your going to have to pay. Aim for a quality score of 4, minimum. Google will provide this data for you, so you can make the necessary changes. • Relevancy. Make sure your focusing on making your campaigns as relevant as you can. This could mean cleaning up your campaigns and removing keywords that don't get any impressions or have a poor CTR. • Make sure there is a "call to action" in your adcopy. Don't make the mistake of making it something lame that doesn't make the visitor want to click on your ads. It might take some time to find the best call to action phrases, but it will be well worth it. • Don't forget about long tailed keywords. You can find some hidden gems with long tails. Remember that one word keywords rarely get good results with Adwords. • Closely monitor keywords that get a high CTR and hone in on those keywords. This could mean deleting keywords that don't perform very good. Remember to let them run for 2-3 weeks before making any changes. Adwords Resources There is an ever-growing list of outdated or just plain inaccurate information about Adwords. Here are some good resources which will give you a better understanding of Google Adwords: • "Ultimate Guide To Google Adwords: How To Access 100 Million People in 10 minutes" by Perry Marshall. • Lovesdata.com (offers a Adwords training seminar). • PPCblog.com by Aaron Wall.

Social Media A social presence is essential to marketing yourself successfully in 2014. By tapping into Facebook (1.3+ billion active users), YouTube (1+ billion active users), Google +1 (300+ million active users), Twitter (645 million active users), and LinkedIn (250+ million active users), you can reach hundreds of thousands of targeted people that would be interested in your companies products or services. Ways To Look Like A Social Media Rookie Over the years people make the same mistakes time and time again. Don't follow the sheep off the cliff. These tactics will make you look like a fool on social media: • Dropping your links everywhere and never participating with other like minded people. • Only focusing on yourself and yourself only. The mindset of people is not to be pitched your ideas to your products and services when on social media. • Using automated programs that have manipulative intent. Be a real person and not a robot. Speak like you really do. This is also a good way to get your account banned. • Not having a bio, profile picture or any contact information. • Ignoring your customers messages or feedback that clients or future clients ask. • Posting something every 10-15 minutes all day long. This is spamming! • Over stuffing hashtags into everything you put up. • Sending automated DM (direct messages) on Twitter. Do people still read their direct messages on Twitter? • Targeting people that are not in your country or don't speak your language. • Constantly tagging people on everything you do just so it will be posted on their personal page. Best Practices For Social Media • Focus on mastering one social media channel before moving to the next. A lot of people try to tackle them all at once. • Don't spend all day on these social media sites. 20 minutes a day should be fine. • Focus on engaging people. You're goal is to not look like a used car salesman. Focus on helping people. Leave quality comments on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google +1, and YouTube. Build relationships. • Use hashtags when relevant. Make them sound natural. Well placed hashtags can go along way. • Do your research on the forums on what problems people are having. Then compose some well researched articles and monitor these keyword phrases on all the social media networks. • For Twitter users, take advantage of advanced search features. • Use Topsy, Followerwonk.com and find influencers in your industry. These influencers can drastically help your social media efforts. • Share others content. Use the 80/20 rule and only share highly relevant information on your social media properties. • Customize your social media account to your brand. • Ask your employees to link to your business's social media pages. • Be consistent, daily, weekly, and monthly. Pi n g Z i n e . c o m

Learning About Social Media There is a lot of information available about social media. It can be very overwhelming. Stop spinning your wheels, and learn from the authority sites. Here are some resources to help minimize the learning curve: • HooteSuite University. • OnlineMarketingInstitute.org. • SocialMediaOnlineClasses.com.

Longterm Marketing

SEO. Search engine optimization is one vital aspect to growing your business online. Because, Google is searched by millions of people everyday, your online presence on Google is tremendous. This tactic for online marketing yields a lot of long term ROI. But, like anything on the internet, there are effective approaches to SEO. But, on the other side of the coin, there are tactics that can get you in hot water with Google. Ineffective SEO Tactics • Over stuffing your website with keywords. • Creating thin content that doesn't really provide any value to your clients. • Building only one type of link. You should make sure your link profile looks natural. Diversity is one of the biggest keys to SEO. • Using anchor text which is all keywords your trying to rank for. Ever since Penguin has been rolled out you should be building your anchors that are mostly your URL. • Spinning content and sending it to lots of different article directories, web 2.0, spam blogs, and wiki sites. • Buying links that are dofollow. • Creating link wheels which create a clear footprint that Google can easily detect. • Don't worry about meta tags. • Effective SEO Tactics • Make sure your page has your keywords in the title, description, H1 tag, and is mentioned a couple times in your content. • Make your content longer and better than your competitors. Pack a massive feature rich punch! • Update your content every 6 months. Google favors fresh content. • Focus on creating authority backlinks rather than tons of low value ones. Focus on guest posting, authority directory listings, blog outreach, infographics, and content marketing. • Improve your internal linking structure on your website. Take advantage of using breadcrumbs. • Be consistent with your SEO. Don't build 1,000's of links and then nothing. SEO is a marathon and not a sprint. There are a lot of good SEO companies you can hire. But, there are a lot of them that actually use blackhat or spammy techniques. Make sure you talk with any SEO company before hiring anyone. It's pretty common to shop around for a good SEO company. Ask you business partners for references. SEO Resources • Moz.org • Seobook.com • SearchEngineLand.com • SearchEngineJournal.com

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Content Marketing Content marketing has been used since 1895. Obviously with the advancement of technology content marketing strategies have changed over the years. But, one of the most effective means of promoting your business is through content marketing. So what is content marketing? Developing highly useful content (videos, graphics, ebooks, how-tos, list, whiteboards, etc.) that provide valuable "content" to people that would be interested in your products or services. Essentially your selling without selling. Videos If you’re considering developing videos for content marketing, then you should use how-to articles. One good tactic is to browse the forms and social media to see if you can find a common problem that a lot of people are asking. Also, you can use Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers to do your research. Once you have found a common problem you will be able to create a video that addresses these issues. Make sure you mention your website at the end of the video so people can visit your website. Keep your videos short and sweet. People have a low attention span when watching a video online. Graphics The most common tactic for content marketing is developing an infographic that addresses valuable information in a ascetically pleasing way. The goal here is to share as much knowledge on a subject as possible. The longer and more content rich the better. Remember that once you develop a infographic your going to want to put some HTML code at the the end of the infographic. This allows people to share it on their blogs and websites. Include a link back to your website in the code. Focus on submitting your infographic to a number of authority infographic websites. eBook eBooks are a great way to take full advantage of content marketing. Giving them away for free builds trust. If you properly construct your eBooks they can spread all around the internet which will help increase your brand. One common tactic a lot of businesses are using is having people opt-in to their mailing list before they have access to their 50 page eBook. The better and more content rich your eBook the further your content marketing strategies will go.

Conclusion

In conclusion, make sure you measure your success and failures with any strategy your going to use. It's all about finding out what works for your business and then implementing it until you get a decent ROI. There are countless businesses online that offer the above mentioned services. You can do it yourself if you're willing to learn. But, if you are looking to hire outside help make sure you do your homework on the company. Always plan for marketing that isn't going to give you the kind of ROI you would have liked to see. Remember to be flexible and switch up your tactics based on what is working and not working. If you’re seeing good results with a short term tactic hammer then use it until you find a long term tactic that works for you. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Using the two pronged approach will allow you to take your business to the next level.

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TASK

BY DOUGLAS HANNA

Over ten years ago as Bill Gates looked into the future, he stated there were going to be only two kinds of businesses in the world – those with an Internet presence and those with no business at all. And here we are nearing 2014, and how close was Gates’ to his prediction?

Preparing Your Website for Future Growth! Let’s face it – a Website is an integral part of business. The purpose of a website is to attract more people to an organization in order to better communicate and to build and increase business. Statistics suggest that 80 percent of traffic is a result of search engines electronically scouring over four billion Web pages. The overall design of a business’ website is meant to attract visitors; however the first priority is to figure out the reason for having a website. In other words, are you selling a product, offering a particular kind of customer service, providing your audience with specific information, or just making your presence on the Internet known? A practical beginning is to estimate the cost, as well as what skills will be needed. Assuming most reasons for a website is to sell products or provide specific services; certain basic goals should be kept in mind:

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Plan Your Website

Most times when businesses are just getting started, the principals are on a limited budget; however, basic optimization while building a website’s design and a solid navigational foundation will allow for future growth in both business and the website. Search Engine Optimization doesn’t guarantee high placement, but it helps the website be seen because of careful analysis, proper layout, keyword research, keyword density, design, and proper content. SEO professionals can even track and analyze competition with keyword and content searches; a necessary plan to stay ahead of one’s market. When first planning a website, there’s a lot to read about including design, graphics, and interface, but crucial to proper web development is setting objectives which includes figuring out what you want to do with the website, who you want to attract and what you want your readers to discover when viewing your website. After you gather all of the information, then it is time to work on the web pages, graphics, links, forums, audio, news, etc.

Have Growth Strategies

Websites need meticulous planning. There are a host of e-books and information available online that deal with website designing, but a talented graphic designer and a Search Engine Optimization consultant can dynamically increase a business’ presence on the web. Many new businesses are naïve about quality content that keeps the attention of customers, keywords that customers are apt to enter when doing a Google or Yahoo search when looking for a particular business or service, and how user-friendly and professional sites place higher in search engines than amateur attempts from a person quite impervious to the particular strategies needed to make the difference in a long-term successful website.

The problem is that web designing can be expensive, but it’s likely to ensure better results for the future. Great websites just don’t happen by chance. Again, while in the planning stage, goals must be defined. Are you using the website to build your brand, sell a product, sell a service, or provide customer support? After taking into account the specific objectives, then comes the marketing so that a new business can attract visitors to their website with the idea that they will convince potential clients to use their services or purchase their products. If the general consensus states an average web visitor will make their decision to stay on any particular web site within the first ten seconds, then it is definitely that first impression that will mean success or failure for a new business. Therefore it is important to make efficient use of visuals, links customers will need, and user friendly check out resources. Routinely analyzing results will help to readjust strategies as a business grows and revenues increase.

Updating a Website

Keeping a website updated can become a full-time job. Visitors want to read the latest news on informational websites. When selling products, the website has to be kept current including special promotions, discounted prices, or when merchandise is no longer available. If a website reflects too many errors or fails to keep visitors informed, traffic quickly dissipates causing a loss in revenue. Another important aspect of updating an interactive website is to be able to answer emails, phone calls and other online services. Regular visitors return to websites to read updated news or see the latest inventory. Every website needs to routinely create new content, build creative graphics and evolve as the organization grows. Technology is

changing so quickly that websites can quickly become obsolete if appropriate HTML codes and meta tags are not routinely added to help viewers via search engines find a particular website. Incidentally when there are many pages to update, the initial design of the website needs to be kept in mind. One of the most common examples is the need to manually add one’s logo to every page, but if the logo changes as the business evolves and the number of pages increase, that then becomes a tedious and time consuming job to change. Just having regular technical assistance and daily monitoring can keep a website running smoothly.

Unique Website Design

Every successful website needs to have their own ideas and build their own branding. Websites often evolve into content rich and interactive programs attracting even more visitors and customers. It is an art which must think of the customer first and look forward to lots of traffic. If a business wants to create their own web design, a small site will demand a working knowledge of HTML, the foundation of any site and CSS – the assistant language to HTML. Designers must have a proficient working knowledge of PHP basics, Javascript, JQuery, and Wordpress to create everything from programming language to blogging engines. The possibilities are endless, but depending on one’s technical, artistic, and writing skills can be the difference between mediocre and divine. Remember the first job interview when you wore nice clothes, combed your hair, cleaned your shoes, and researched the company so you would make a good impression? That’s exactly what your web design will do for you online.

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So now that an organization’s website is designed to accommodate future growth, there is still another important consideration – upgrading one’s web host. A growing website might outgrow that first inexpensive host, and a company may already have noticed technical issues, uptime glitches, lack of support, and less knowledgeable professionals on the technical side. Planning in advance and doing one’s homework can save a lot of downtime, frustration, and money. There are three main categories when searching for a web host. First there are the free web hosts which are fine for creating a site to display one’s hobbies or passions. There are no domain names involved, and such hosts as Google page and WordPress are user friendly and fine for beginners. The next step up are considered budget web hosts where one does get their own domain name, however there is little security, and it is suggested the budget hosting be reserved for informational web sites only. If a new organization is serious from the get-go about growing and developing a business and website, why not start off with a full service web host which routinely provides administrative capabilities, 24/7 support, secure ordering, plug ins, email servers and all necessary elements to build a profitable business without technical problems that can be disastrous to any income producing business? So how do you figure out if you need a web hosting upgrade? In the beginning everything seems so simple and promising, and one might never anticipate exhausting one’s limitations using shared web hosting. When pages load slowly, visitors get annoyed. Frequently they will run out of patience and just click to another website. Upgrading one’s plan as soon as a website begins to show slow performance is the best way to prevent downtime and the possible loss of visitors and business. If you’re looking forward to a growing website, shared web hosting limitations can result in poor performance.

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Let’s consider the following: Domains – Many organizations have multiple domains. Most shared hosting allows for a certain amount of domains before charging extra. Multiple websites – If your business is going to have several websites, make sure to upgrade before you exceed your maximum on your current plan. Read the fine print for limitations and fees. Upgrades demanding more bandwidth and disk space can make significant cost increases. Bandwidth – As a website grows so do the requirements for an increase in bandwidth to accommodate more visitors. Hosting companies should only bill you according to the amount you actually exceed; make sure there is no prepayment clause in your contract. Steer clear of “unlimited” bandwidth hosts. The facts remain that the host has to pay for bandwidth, and if you use more than your allotted share, it’s almost impossible to think they are going to pay for it. Also, don’t be taken in by promises of huge amounts of free or low cost bandwidth; the truth is that before you hit the maximum for bandwidth use – a website owner will charge an organization for other resource limits commonly classified as “resource usage.” That could include CPU time, RAM usage, database connections, or MySQL connections. Again, keep in mind to research long term possibilities when planning a website. And finally, as an organization’s website grows – content pages increase, adding upgrades, the addition of blogging scripts, changing from static to dynamic websites and a substantial increase in traffic, it may be time to upgrade to a VPS or dedicated hosting plan to avoid traffic surge crashes, downtime or even denial to servers temporarily. By then you’re well on your way to having a successful website.

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GAMER

BY BRANDIE RICHARDSON

NET NEUTRALITY LIKELY TO COST GAMERS AND WEB SURFERS What is Net Neutrality?

Net Neutrality is a set of laws issued by the Federal Communications Commission that bar Internet providers from discriminating against certain websites or imposing fees for high-bandwidth sites. The FCC established the Net Neutrality laws in 2011 in an effort to preserve Internet freedom to users from providers denying access to sites that compete with their own services. According to the Federal Register, the rules issued in 2011 required three things from providers: • Disclose network management practice, performance characteristic, and terms and condition of their broadband services • To not block lawful content, applications, services, and non-harmful devices • Not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic

FCC Current Ruling

On January 14, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC didn’t have the right to enforce these laws. The case, brought on by Verizon, had a 2-1 ruling, granting Internet providers the power to freely prioritize web traffic, meaning that they had the right to charge high traffic sites fees for faster Internet. “The court’s decision will allow more room for innovation, and consumers will have more choices to determine for themselves how they access and experience the Internet. Verizon has been and remains committed to the open Internet that provides consumers with competitive choices and unblocked access to lawful websites and content when, where, and how they want. This will not change in light of the court’s decision,” stated Verizon executive VP, Randal Milch. Following the court’s decision, FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler stated that the Commission would consider whether to appeal the ruling or to draft new rules. “The FCC also is not going to abandon its responsibility to oversee that broadband networks operate in the public interest. It is not going to ignore the historic reality that when a new network transitions to become an economic force that economic incentives begin to affect the public interest. This means that we will not disregard the possibility that exercises of economic power or of 0

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ideological preference by dominant network firms will diminish the value of the Internet to some or all segments of our society,” wrote Wheeler on the FCC’s official blog.

How will it affect users?

The courts current ruling states that Internet providers like Verizon, can now charge certain sites fees based on their bandwidth usage. For example, popular video and music companies, such as Netflix and YouTube, would seem to be the first to get charged, considering how many subscribers they have. Netflix currently charges customers $7.99 a month to stream hundreds of movies and television shows to their computers, TVs, and mobile devices. If a service provider decided to charge the company money to increase their bandwidth, companies would either have to pay or suffer from slow Internet, angering many customers. Theoretically, this would eventually cause a snowball effect; charge companies fees for faster Internet and sooner or later these fees will trickle down to consumers. If the cost of doing business goes up, companies would have no choice than to pass some of those costs to consumers, so sites like YouTube and Pandora would no longer be free. “The correct capitalist response would be to charge the end user, but no vendor wants to go to the customer to hammer them if it can be avoided,” stated Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush. “The elimination of net neutrality means they can go to Netflix and squeeze them instead.” The gaming industry would also be likely to see changes. Sony’s newest console, the PS4, now has a monthly fee of $9.99 to play multiplayer online games. This subscription fee has the possibility to be raised if the company does get charged more fees, because it is very unlikely Sony would take a big hit like this without charging its customers. Same effect could occur on games that require monthly subscription fees. Right now the elimination of Net Neutrality is targeting companies, but who says that later on down the road this won’t target individuals.

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ACCESS

MOPHIE SPACE PACK THE GOOD The Space Pack solves two of the iPhone’s biggest problems, storage space and battery life. This device offers an additional 16 or 32 GB of extra built-in storage, along with extra battery time. The light weight case offers up to 8 extra hours of talk time, 40+ hours of music playback, and 10+ hours of video playback, for those who are constantly on their iPhones. THE BAD This device is only compatible with the iPhone 5 and 5S. While the case is lightweight, it is a little bulky and not as durable as other protective cases that are currently on the market. If you want to put headphones in, it is a little inconvenient seeing as you have to carry an adapter, which can easily get lost. Also, the price is a little steep, starting at $149.95.

SPECIFICATIONS •

Weight: 0.5 lb

•

Compatibility: iPhone 5/5S

•

Color: Black and White

•

Warranty: 1 year

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Availability: Shipping March 2014

•

Battery Capacity: 1700mAh

THE VERDICT The Space pack is a good product for those who are constantly using up their memory and battery life on their iPhones. While the product is kind of expensive, it is a lot cheaper than buying a new phone for additional storage. While the lacks of iPhone models are limited, we do expect Mophie to add more versions of the case.

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ACCESS

GARMIN VIVOFIT THE GOOD What sets the Vivofit apart from its competitors is its ability to learn your activity level, which is what your fitness goals are based off of. Your movement, calories burned, and progress are tracked and can be shown on its curved display screen. The device also keeps you motivated by notifying you when you have been idle for too long. One of the best things about the Vivofit is its battery life; it can last up to more than a year on a single charge. Additionally, the band is waterproof; it can go up to 164 feet underwater THE BAD If you plan on using this device at night, it’s going to be almost impossible since Garmin did not equip the Vivofit with a backlight. Also, it doesn’t measure stairs or elevation, which many find useful. THE VERDICT This reasonably priced device is a great option for first time buyers. Its display screen and battery life, along with its instant feedback, are convenient features that we find to be helpful.

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SPECIFICATIONS •

Weight: 0.5 lb

•

Display size: 25.5mm x10mm

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Battery: Two replaceable CR1632 coin cells

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Color: Black, Purple, Teal, Blue, Slate

•

Availability: Hits shelves in Q1 of 2014

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Price: $129.99 for standard version and $169.99 for the heart rate monitor version

TASK

Fraud Every Business is at Risk by Chuck Gallagher At first when his wife said that Sargent Willis was on the phone and had some questions, Reverend Bobby thought he might have run a red light and was caught by a traffic cam. Sadly, the actual problem was much graver. The police officer began to question him about Sue Hardy, the church’s treasurer, and the role she played in the church’s business affairs. It seemed that there were some suspicions of financial impropriety, and that Sue was the likely perpetrator. The Shock of a Collapsing Illusion

We hear a lot these days about identity theft, Internet fraud, email scams or Wall-Street defalcations, but the truth is most organizations are more vulnerable to fraud than they might think. Whether it is a church, a non-profit or a small business that you’ve put blood, sweat and tears into, the chance that you’re at risk for fraud is substantial. The conversation between Reverend Bobby and Sargent Willis led to an arrest and conviction of what Reverend Bobby once described as a pillar of sainthood in their small, but growing church. Sue was a Christian’s Christian. The backbone of the church, Sue gave up of her time, taught Sunday school and was the treasurer for years. Sadly, regardless of the type of organization, most frauds take place from within the company’s own ranks, and more times than not, by trusted individuals that we would never suspect. 0

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By their nature, small businesses, non-profits or associations are typically run on a shoestring budget, which makes staffing tight and internal controls limited. And while most people are trustworthy, external factors can create a need that, combined with opportunity and a dose of rationalization, create the potential for unethical and fraudulent activity. When the perfect storm of fraud hits and the illusion fades into reality it becomes clear the devastation that fraudulent activity creates. Every choice has a consequence and the consequences of fraud are significant and far-reaching.

What to Look For

Let’s use the example of Sue above to frame the discussion about how good people make very bad choices, which leads to fraud. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners the following are red flags for fraudulent behavior:

1 2 3

Most frauds are committed by people who have worked in the organization for a number of years. People who have ten years or more of experience with the organization cause higher fraud losses. Why? The answer is simple: the longer a person is employed within a company, the greater the trust and responsibility. Likewise, trusted employees are not often considered likely candidates for fraud. Individuals in one of six departments commit the vast majority of all frauds: accounting, operations, sales, executive/upper management, customer service and purchasing. If fraud occurs in your business, it is likely by someone who has opportunity; individuals in these six areas have the greatest opportunity to violate trust. Fraudsters displayed one or more of these red flags before or during the commission of the fraud: living beyond means, financial difficulties, unusually close association with vendors or customers, and excessive control issues. Any of these behaviors could be a sign of impending danger. In looking back on the situation, Reverend Bobby could have seen disaster coming. Sue was a trusted member of the church holding her position for more years than Reverend Bobby had been there. Not that longevity is a bad thing, but church leadership could have required a change of roles from time to time disrupting the natural flow of funds. Typically when things change inappropriate behavior comes to light. But, beyond Sue’s tenure, she was quite protective over the money and monetary processes for the church. Excessive control is a significant sign that something might be amiss. When

people are unwilling to let go of their control, take a vacation or insist that only they can do the task, leadership should step back and examine the role and function more carefully. Finally, in Sue’s case, there never seemed to be enough. Sue received calls often from creditors. Consistently she would either quickly hang up, showing her dissatisfaction with the call received, or take the call on her cell phone, out of ear shot, and return to work irritated at the interruption.

Final Outcome

In the end, Sue embezzled over $200,000 from the church where she was trusted. The discovery was both a shock and disappointment to Reverend Bobby and the entire congregation. Every choice has a consequence. Sue’s choices – made over time – created significant consequences. Today she is serving a prison sentence that will leave a permanent scar on her and those close to her. Bobby shared that he now understands the importance of his role in this whole troubling problem. As management, Bobby has a responsibility to understand the three components of unethical behavior and often-illegal behavior: need, opportunity and rationalization. Most importantly, Bobby knows that with some minor changes, Sue could have been prevented from making those dangerous choices, which led to an outcome that no one wanted. As a manager of your organization, what steps are you taking to protect your most valuable assets – your employees – from making dangerous decision that impact them and your organization?

BRAND

Top Tips On

or many, the science of search engine optimization (SEO) and page rankings is a mystery. Yet while there are many top consultants earning thousands of pounds per day to share their knowledge, there are a number of basic things you can be doing to tweak your site and tweak your rankings. Get SEO right from the get-go and keep focused on the basics and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg to maintain. With the rapid emergence of social media and related analytical technology, combined with tight budgets and the evolving perception of brand content, today’s websites play a vital role in lead generation. One of the benefits of leveraging SEO as a demand generation vehicle is that the investment is relatively low, especially when compared with most lead generation marketing initiatives. More and more organizations are realizing that low cost, combined with extensive reach, make the website a fertile lead gen ground.

SEO Rankings by Thomas Vollrath, Webfusion

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Here are the five golden rules that any company or organization needs to follow to make sure they maximize the use of their website:

Don’t be Flashy

Many people say that Flash is a dying format. With the uptake of tablets that can’t view Flash, the final nails are being driven into its coffin, and with it goes one of the other downfalls of the format: its poor Google ranking. It is possible to rank well using a Flash site, but it takes time and a lot of expertise and most small businesses won’t know or be able to afford that expertise. Yes, Flash looks good – to those who can view it – and makes a great first impression, but remember people need to find your site first, so we would advise you to ditch the Flash and watch your rankings and thus overall traffic improve.

Keep it useful

Trendy, news-worthy content is great when it happens, but it won’t give your site longevity. Even if you feature current keywords and phrases, it still makes your content and site disposable. To keep your site attracting traffic back to your content and to increase the potential of backlinks for years to come, you should be creating authoritative content that is not time-specific.

Review your profiles

Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook… your company and employees probably have profiles on all of these and more, but are they all singing the same song? Take time out to check where you have profiles and at least make sure they are

up-to-date, all carry the correct URL and link to one another. Individually these may not make a big difference, but address them all and you could see a marked improvement on your rank. At the very least you can be sure the information about your company is correct.

Go local

Google, Yahoo! and Bing all offer benefits for local businesses. You may have a global operation but many searchers will still be swayed by the opportunity to use a local company over one that is hundreds of miles away. It is well worth you securing your free local listing on each of the search giants. Many are claiming the future of search is local and with the uptake of local business profiles still low, by registering now you have a great chance of getting ahead of the competition.

Be original and then promote

It may sound a bit like discovering penicillin, but with a bit of thought and a lot of drive you could make your own breakthrough in the SEO world. If you are looking to buy keywords, obviously the less popular the better value for money, so what about choosing a less popular one and trying to make it popular? Find a word that sums up what you do and use that as your push for the next 12 months. Use it in tweets, blogs, emails, even advertise and you will be surprised how quickly it can fall in to common usage and more importantly be instantly recognized with your brand.” That’s just a few ways to improve, but there are many others. Search engine optimization is a whole science (or art) in its own right. What is important is that you regularly review your own site, how it is ranking and check that you have the latest relevant keywords included somewhere. Pi n g Z i n e . c o m

BRAND

Ways to Make Yourself Quotable on Social Media

veryone loves a great quote that can summarize pages of paragraphs in just a line or two, which is perfect for today’s bite-size posts shared on social media sites, says award-winning author and college instructor Daniel L. Wick. There is no shortage of websites devoted to some of the best quotes in history; unfortunately, they’re usually coupled with a modicum of spam-y advertising links that easily distract from a profound message, he says. “Many quotes are aphorisms, or epigrams, or have the qualities of an epigram,” Wick says. “Epigrams and aphorisms are both original thoughts that are usually concise and memorable; they’re brief, usually witty, occasionally profound observations on life, love, death, philosophy, religion and virtually everything else.” It’s great that more folks are exposed to nuggets of wisdom from Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and George Carlin, but that doesn’t mean that you, too, can’t provide your own original perspective, says Wick, author of the new book, “An Epidemic of Epigrams or an Avalanche of Aphorisms,” (http://tinyurl.com/pzsqnza). He offers tips for crafting your own memorable quotes.

Don’t be afraid to stand out.

Repurpose conventional quotes.

Ask yourself, “Does it feel right?”

Have you ever liked or reposted a great quote shared by a friend? You may be circulating a meme, an idea that spreads from one individual to the next. In other words, it’s like a cliché on steroids; it goes “viral.” If you have your own thought, why not share it with your friends? Many people believe that since they’re not Shakespeare that they have no business spreading their original pithy observations, but you may be surprised by the response!

In self-defense, it’s called using your opponent’s weight against him. Rather than collide with a bigger opponent’s force, use it against him. If you’re tired of conventional wisdom, put your own twist on that nugget of truth. “It works; people instantly recognize the quote but have to pause to process its new meaning,” Wick says. “A few examples I use include: ‘Beauty is only sin deep,’ and ‘You shouldn’t judge a cover by its book.’ ”

How do you know that you’ve come up with something that will provoke thought and delight? After crafting a line or two you may feel that, in one sense, you’ve come up with something pretty interesting – but in what way? It’s one thing to succinctly pose a clever question that is deceptively profound; it’s another thing to confuse people with a poorly stated idea. As any good writer would do, put yourself in the reader’s seat. After verifying the meaning and grammatical flow, read with a fresh point of view and ascertain whether or not it resonates with that something extra.

“Of course, great ideas and great quotes don’t often reveal themselves on command; they often spring forth on their own terms,” Wick says. “My advice: be open when a good idea presents itself.” 0

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TECHIE

LIN D S E Y

W H ITE

HTTP

How to Translate Problems Most internet surfers groan when encountering an HTTP code. Oftentimes (but not always), these codes signal a problem accessing a website. Just the other day, I attempted to access my freelance website, when I ran into one of these harbingers of doom. However, HTTP codes are not to blame; they are simply messengers for the website. HTTP, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol, codes describe the status of a URL when a visitor tries to access the associated website. If trouble occurs, these codes display an error message.

301 400 500

HTTP codes are three-digit numbers, divided into five categories based on the first digit. Let’s start with the good guys. A first digit of 1, 2, or 3 represents a fully functional request. For example, when website owners set up a redirect for a particular page, they must also select whether the redirect will be permanent or temporary. When the redirect is active, visitors receive either a 301 or a 302 code. While 301 lets the visitor’s browser know that it should update its records, 302 does not update the visitor’s bookmarks.

Now, let’s move on to the bad guys. A starting digit of 4 signifies a client-side error, with the most common codes spanning from 400 to 404. When visitors receive a 404 code, for instance, it means the server could not find the requested file. This error code typically appears after the visitor enters an incorrect URL. Although these errors are technically the result of a problem with the client’s request, oftentimes they point to a problem with the website. For this reason, website owners should monitor these errors and investigate their causes. HTTP codes in the 400s are also among the most high profile as far as visitor views.

Finally, a beginning digit of 5 represents a server-side error; codes spanning from 500 to 510 are standard. For example, when visitors receive a 500 code, it means the server has met an unexpected condition. In particular, this “catch-all” error code appears when the server cannot gather specific information regarding this condition. The error code most often occurs when an application request is unfulfilled due to a misconfiguration. HTTP codes in the 500s are the result of the server’s inability to complete an apparently valid request from a visitor. Website owners ordinarily need assistance from a server administrator to investigate these errors. Many times a chain of servers is handling the HTTP request so the actual web server may not be responsible for returning the error.

Writer’s Bio: Lindsey White is a technical writer for cPanel. She writes and edits technical guides, help files, white papers, release notes, website content, and marketing copy. She received her B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and M.S. in Professional Writing and Technical Communication from the University of Houston.

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