Can we imagine a day without internet? A single day, not using Facebook, Google, Yahoo or Wiki? Not a day goes by where one can stay without getting connected to the internet. An avid internet user or a Facebook addict can go virtually mad if they cannot stay connected with their own world.
Internet has become a powerful tool. Needless to say, it has become more open which makes it easy for anyone to convey their ideas or share their thoughts. But the sad news is that political leaders and parties have marred the internet for their personal gain.
Mark Zuckerburg, the internet entrepreneur and Chief executive of Facebook shared, “The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development. Facebook opposes SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act), and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet. The world today needs political leaders who are pro-internet. We have been working with many of these folks for months on better alternatives to these current proposals. I encourage you to learn more about these issues and tell your Congressmen that you want them to be pro-internet”.

He also added that, “Noting that social networking website Facebook takes online piracy and copyright infringement very seriously, rogue foreign sites that pirate American intellectual property or sell counterfeit goods pose significant problems for the US economy. Two pieces of legislation in front of the Congress are not the right solution to this problem, because of the collateral damage these overreaching bills would cause to the Internet. The two legislations could create very real problems for Internet companies like ours that are a primary driver of innovation, growth, and job creation in the 21st century economy. The bills contain overly broad definitions and create a new private cause of action against companies on the basis of those expansive definitions, which could seriously hamper the innovation, growth, and investment in new companies that have been the hallmarks of the Internet.”

Stop SOPA

As SOPA sinks down in a stream of words and texts, the speed and the frequency at which the US net community rang the alarm bells over the contradictions and extremities of the Act, took it faster and closer to demise. Though created with the hope of penalizing websites that deal in pirated content, SOPA doesn’t augur well for quite a lot of popular websites, search engines and online advertisers for they will be held liable as ‘foreign infringing site’ and for ‘search results, links or other placements that provide access to the foreign infringing site’ under Section 102.

The amount of heat the Congress has taken over the past few months reached its peak with the Internet Blackout of January 18^th and consequently resulted in Senator Harry Reid’s announcement of an indefinite suspension of the Bill that was supposed to be ushered in for the not-so-effective DMC Act (1998).

Dick Costolo’s (CEO, Twitter) tweeted, “That’s just silly. Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish,” which more or less was the common opinion of all those who stood against SOPA/PIPA. Deeming it unethical to shut down websites without due process, lawmakers are sensing a need to revisit the approach and rework on SOPA, if it ever were to hit the Congress floor again.

If the existing anti-piracy laws have enough clout to process the shutdown of MegaUpload.com by the US, the SOPA would have been the end of Internet, if implemented in its present form, even if the consequences to US based sites were unintended, as some might claim.

Notwithstanding the tussle between the Hollywood taking the side of Intellectual property and Silicon Valley raising its voice for freedom of speech, media transmitting tools such as torrents, peer-to-peer network and streaming are considered to be clearly smart over the infamous Napster.

An argument of strong defiance was voiced out by Andrade, President of Cal State Fullerton Reddit Group when he called SOPA as a ‘weak man’s tool’ which could possibly corrupt the government. His disappointment on several counts was further visible as he stated that bailing out the already sinking movie/TV/Music industry by enacting SOPA would curb the ‘not-so-profit-motivated’ organic and innovative forms of entertainment. As much as SOPA might be deemed to address the problem of theft of American inventions and products, it also acts as a barrier for unlimited information access.

For the White House, anything that targets the DNS is a big N0-N0. The Republican primary debate in South Carolina was a tremor of blasts as it took on SOPA. The former House Speaker insisted that the pushing forward of SOPA by some of the most powerful, influential companies are signs of commotion and the information revolution would fare badly before we analyze what actually went wrong.

Presidential prospect, Mitt Romney sees the law as intrusive, threatening and potentially depressing bringing the fastest growing industries in America from grace to disgrace. While a bill that restricts freedom should be weighed carefully, protecting the right of other people should also be a concern is Rick Santorum’s unbiased perspective of SOPA. Google that blacked out their research doodle slowed their crawl speed by 60%, while Baidu and Bing are down by 11% 2.35%, respectively.

Nonetheless, with regard to the debate on SOPA and PIPA dying out there is something similar the European Union is trying to do by working on ratifying a global intellectual property enforcement treaty, The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). In spite of the fact that the Big Brother ACTA has the potential to overtake SOPA&PIPA, its enhanced capabilities to infringe on consumers’ privacy and civil liberties while dealing with counterfeit physical goods are expected to be viewed as fatal flaws that would raise the dust.

In this sequel, the Government of Ireland is gearing up to pass a statutory instrument that would encourage rights holders to seek injunctions against ISPs for illegal downloads. But that said, with a parallel jump in access to and avenues for expression, anyone could take offence at anything too.

Wiki Blackout

Google confirmed that it would be joining the January 18, protest against SOPA/PIPA. “Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet. So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our U.S. home page,” Google said in a statement. While it might not entirely blackout Gmail, Google Search, Maps, or Google+ for the day, the search giant will be raising awareness through banners on its USA sites.

Wikipedia, which has announced a 24 hr blackout of its English version will will be joined by thousands other sites, between 12 and 24 hours. Some popular sites include Wikipedia, Reddit, all 64 Cheezburger Network blogs, Boing Boing, Destructoid, Mozilla, TwitPic, Imgur, MoveOn, MineCraft, FreakOutNation and I Heart Chaos, among many others.Here is a list of those who have joined the protest against SOPA-PIPA.

Yesterday, the bill sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith announced that a markup of the bill will start in February 2012, while coming down heavily on the protests as a “publicity stunt. In a statement, he announced, “It is ironic that a website dedicated to providing information is spreading misinformation about the Stop Online Piracy Act. The bill will not harm Wikipedia, domestic blogs or social networking sites. This publicity stunt does a disservice to its users by promoting fear instead of facts. Perhaps during the blackout, Internet users can look elsewhere for an accurate definition of online piracy.”

Meanwhile the support for Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are gaining in strength as the PIPA hearing is scheduled for 18^th January, 2012 and here is a ProPublica listing on who is on which side.

The Obama administration came out with a statement that it will not support parts of either bill that “reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

The Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing on January 18 to hear the arguments of technical experts, technology job creators, Internet investors and legal scholars.

EFF’s activists, who strongly oppose the Bill will be providing live coverage of the event through EFFLive Twitter account.

According to comScore, with almost 2.7 billion searches on Bing in December 2011, it became the second most used search engine in the US, overtaking Yahoo which was used for 2.6 billion searches. On top of the table, Google maintained its dominance with 12 billion explicit core searches. Google gained 0.4% from its November 2011 to end the year with a 65.9% market share and Bing gained 0.1% over its November, 2011 standing of 15% while Yahoo fell by 0.6% from its November mark to finish at 14.5%. Ask and AOL maintained 2.9% and 1.6% with no variations to its November 2011, user base.

The Global search market was dominated by Google with 80% of the market share which was followed by Baidu with 10%. Yahoo, though overtaken by Bing in the US, stood at 6% while Bing followed with 3%, for December 2011, according to Netmarkershare.

Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican Representative and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), as a bill in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, backed by a group of 12 co-sponsors. Though the Texas Republican expected that the bill could generate some tongue wagging, he probably never anticipated the kind of heated outcry from Internet users that SOPA provoked over the last few months.

The Bill intends to allow the US Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. For unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content punishments could range up to a five years prison terms for 10 pieces of music or movies within six months in addition to barring online advertising networks, preventing linking to erring sites on search engines results and could also involve punishing payment facilitators for doing business with the infringing website. Moreover, the bill would enable immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement. Opponents of the bill say that it infringes on First Amendment rights, and is deemed as direct Internet control and censorship which will cripple the Internet, and threaten free speech.

While the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed in 1998, includes a provision under which copyright owners are required to submit a notice to websites found infringing on their copyright to ask for the material to be removed, after which the websites are given limited period of time to remove such material, SOPA would override this provision, allowing judges to immediately block access to any website found guilty of hosting copyrighted material. Etsy, Flickr and Vimeo will have to shut down, the Electronic Frontier Foundation warned, if the bill becomes law as the bill would ban linking to sites deemed offending, even in search results and on services such as Twitter.

On November 15, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn wrote a letter to key members of the US Senate and House of Representatives, arguing that SOPA posed “a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation’s cybersecurity.” Going one step further, Yahoo quit the US Chamber of Commerce, acting swiftly against the organization’s support for SOPA. Here is a list of those who strongly oppose the SOPA which include the top internet companies, CEO’s from across all industries, Non-profit Organizations, Industry Associations, International Human Rights Organizations, Editorial Boards, Academicians, and more.

The House Judiciary Committee held hearings on SOPA on November 16 and December 15, 2011 and has scheduled to continue debate when Congress returns from its winter recess. In both the hearings, the concern expressed by the observers was that the arguments lacked technical expertise.

More than 20 amendments had been rejected, including the OPEN (the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act), by Darrell Issa which would have stripped provisions targeting search engines and Internet providers. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has rejected the bill proposed by Representative Darrell Issa and Senator Ron Wyden as an alternative to the controversy-laden SOPA. While SOPA would be policed by the Department of Justice, Darrell Issa’s OPEN would belong to the International Trade Commission. Considering RIAA to be the chief proponent of SOPA from the start, it’s hardly surprising that it opposes OPEN which it sees as less effective.

Senior executive vice president of RIAA Mitch Gazlier, said: “SOPA was introduced to address the devastating and immediate impact of foreign rogue sites dealing in infringing and counterfeiting works and products. … Why in the world would we shift enforcement against these sites from the Department of Justice and others who are well-versed in these issues to the ITC, which focuses on patents and clearly does not operate on the short time frame necessary to be effective?”

Here are a few reactions that would give you more insights into why SOPA is facing the heat.

Adam Thierer, Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center – “The techno-ignorance of Congress was on full display. Member after member admitted that they really didn’t have any idea what impact SOPA’s regulatory provisions would have on the DNS, online security, or much of anything else.”

eWeek – “The language of SOPA is so broad, the rules so unconnected to the reality of Internet technology and the penalties so disconnected from the alleged crimes that this bill could effectively kill e-commerce or even normal Internet use. The bill also has grave implications for existing U.S., foreign and international laws and is sure to spend decades in court challenges.”

Edward J. Black, President and CEO of the Computer & Communication Industry Association- “Ironically, it would do little to stop actual pirate websites, which could simply reappear hours later under a different name, if their numeric web addresses aren’t public even sooner. Anyone who knows or has that web address would still be able to reach the offending website.”

Fortune Magazine – “This is just another case of Congress doing the bidding of powerful lobbyists—in this case, Hollywood and the music industry, among others. It would be downright mundane if the legislation weren’t so draconian and the rhetoric surrounding it weren’t so transparently pandering.”

Laurence Tribe, Harvard Law Professor and author of a treatise titled American Constitutional Law – “an entire Web site containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement.”

Rebecca Jeschke of the Electronic Frontier Foundation - “Hyperlocal news sites would be as vulnerable as any other site on the internet, particularly if they incorporate user-generated content. Under this legislation, a few false moves by contributors might make the site inaccessible.”

A mid-December two-day debate in the House Judiciary committee made it pretty clear that SOPA supporters have a commanding majority on the committee and are expected to approve it when Congress returns in 2012. Where it goes from there is an open question.

AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga in a letter to Issa and Wyden – “[The OPEN Act's] approach targets foreign rogue sites without inflicting collateral damage on legitimate, law-abiding U.S. Internet companies by bringing well-established international trade remedies to bear on this problem.”

For a visual understanding of what SOPA could do, take a look at the Infographics.

In Google’s updates for December 2011, one noteworthy feature that scored well was ‘Megasitelinks’ that is set to alter what Google users see on their search results with the presentation of geo-relevant information. While the existing Google Sitelinks platform lacks webmaster inputs that can suppress lists to prevent certain URLs from appearing in the megasitelinks most of the time the suggestions are disregarded. Sitelinks controls fail to influence suggested changes on the SERPs while the new algorithms updates have created expectations among the marketers and site owners that they might find something new to work with. The fact that Google Megasitelinks employs intelligent algorithms that display a subset of pages relevant to a searcher’s query, also necessitates functional controls in place for them or no controls at all. Yet Google asks for suggestions but ignores them altogether.

Webmasters and marketers would sure be glad to see that they have more control over what the megasitelinks tools allow them to display or hide, irrespective of the algorithmic shift, in addition to finding details about the status of the sitelinks and for what queries. Using the enhanced geographical inferences Google should let them give opportunities wherein businesses can promote locations, offers, coupons, etc. within their sitelinks display area. But the truth is that over the past year or so, marketers have been seeing lesser user related data than before.

Either Google needs to assign controls that gives webmasters the choice of picking up sub-pages for the Megasitelinks or share the logic behind the sub-links that appear, which would help webmasters tune their pages to suit Google’s demands. Feel free to post your opinions on Google’s Megasitelinks update.

Written in 1999, The Cluetrain Manifesto is a set of 95 theses organized and put forward as a manifesto, or call to action, by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger for all businesses operating in the Cyber-age. The ideas within the manifesto aim to examine the impact of the Internet on both markets (consumers) and organizations, challenging outmoded 20th-century business thinking against the emergence of the Web. Inspite of Us and the world having grown older by 11 years since its publication, it gives you some very basic yet profound insights into Marketing and Communication, even if you choose to differ with the whole concept.

Download .pdf: The-Cluetrain-Manifesto

Regardless of the introduction of the IE9, 2011 saw Microsoft’s Internet Explorer fortunes fall from 46% at the start of the year to 39% towards the end 2011, losing seven percentage of its users to rivals. Similar was the fate of Mozilla’s Firefox, which saw usage dip to 25% from over 30%, which it held at the start of the year. While not responding directly to the fall of IE’s market share, Microsoft’s pointed to IE9′s performance on Windows 7 as the only measure that counts. “Based on where the December data currently stands, we’re pleased to say IE9 … will soon take the top spot from IE8 on Windows 7, with usage share expected to come in at nearly 25.6% this month,” wrote Microsoft’s IE marketing chief Roger Capriotti in a blog posting on December 30.

The biggest gainer has been Google’s Chrome browser, which overtook Firefox to establish itself right behind IE as the market shaper of the year commanding a market share of 27%, according to StatCounter’s 2011 data while Net Applications put the figure at 22 %. Both IE and Firefox lost following steadily throughout the year to Chrome, whose usage is still climbing. Chrome enjoyed a surprising 84% growth year-over-year, far beyond any other browser in the market and it is reported that unless the other browsers do something or the other to pose some serious competition to curtail the growth of Google Chrome, we could have a new industry leader by the end of 2012. Safari and Opera have a market share of 6% and 2%, respectively.

The Googlization Of Everything And Why We Should Worry

Siva is a professor of Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia, and he’s the author of The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry). In it, Siva explores how so much of the world has embraced Google over the past decade, and he argues that we need to look critically at that embrace.

Download PDF: The.Googlization.of.Everything

In Ecommerce business, coupons, deals, and discounts are the quintessential marketing tools which drive in business and new customers. These discounts always help both sellers and buyers, especially during tough economic times. An average of 13 million internet users searching for discount coupon codes every month. Traffic to coupon directories is increasing every day. It shows the interest of buyers using discount code. The following image shows “Global Monthly Searches” of coupon code users per month.

To attract these coupon users we should market our offers and discount through the right path to get popularity in right market place. Otherwise the chances of benefitting from these offers are zilch. We can’t manually take our offers to everyone, but through popular coupon directories, our discount and coupons will reach the right spot and become popular on the internet.

The offers we can promote through coupon directories are as follows,

- Coupon Codes

- Deals

- Discount ( without coupon Code)

- Free Shipping

Statistics of Coupon Marketing:

Explaining a marketing strategy without proof is useless. Read further as I explain the coupon marketing strategy with clean statistics and proof.

I have analyzed our recent coupon promotion job for http://www.wealthwood.com. You can find the popularity and the benefits of coupon marketing.

Popularity of Coupon Marketing:

The following image shows the popularity of coupon marketing in search engines….

Once the coupon promotion was completed I analyzed the popularity of coupon campaign. I was excited after seeing search results for the keyword “Wealthwood coupons” .Most of the coupon directories has published the submitted coupons.

This popularity not only stopped at attaining results for the coupon, but also brought good rankings to the store http://www.wealthwood.com

Benefits of Coupon Marketing:

Coupon Marketing drives numerous benefits to your business. I have listed few of them below and also the following image shows it clearly,

- Dedicated store from coupon directories with complete setup including images and logo

- All our coupons/offers and discounts are listed under the store

- Discounts easily reach the buyers thereby increasing sales

- Good popularity from search engines

- Backlinks to the store website.

My analysis shows that without doubt coupon marketing is a good promotion technique for E-Commerce business.