U.S. NetworX

UPDATE: As of Jan. 20, Congress is backing away from the bills and postponing action.

You’ve heard about SOPA and PIPA, the two pieces of legislation aiming to stop online piracy of copyrighted material, and the accompanying protests. But let’s distill it even more, as this is a controversial enough topic we all need to consider.

To make things simple, let’s attack it with the 5 W’s we learned in school, and we’ll certainly leave you to dig even deeper if you like.

Who?

As NPR reported, the battle is basically Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley. You have the media conglomerates (movies, music, media lobbyists, etc.) on one side wanting to stop the online piracy of their content. The other side, you have the vocal opposition of many Internet users and those who rely on it for their own jobs, including Google, Ebay, Facebook, Twitter, Firefox and LinkedIn.

What?

While SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act – PDF) gets the majority of coverage, there’s also PIPA (PROTECT Intellectual Property Act – PDF). SOPA originated in the House of Representatives, while PIPA is the Senate version. Both seek to add powers to respond to copyright infringements across the Net. The New York Times reports that some methods could include preventing search engines from sending users to sites with questionable content, as well as interacting with payment tools/sites like PayPal to stop the transfer of money for possible pirated media.

When?

Reports show that the Senate could begin voting on PIPA on Jan. 24. However, protests were hitting a feverish pitch starting Jan. 18, with many big-name websites (Google, Wikipedia, etc.) going dark in protest, as well as explaining the issues and requesting their visitors to take action.

Where?

While the two bills have originated in the U.S. Congress, their reach could extend even farther. The Internet being so decentralized will lead to so many problems as to searching for possible infringements, you might see foreign websites, hosts, ISPs and the like stuck in such a legal morass. Let’s say a user in Ireland posts an infringed movie file from a California movie company to a website hosted in Israel – it’s likely both groups will be pulled into the fight with the studio. How do you get all the groups, with their separate legal issues, to comply with one another?

Why?

At the heart of the matter is a fight against online piracy of copyright infringed works. I don’t think people want to have free or vastly cheap access to songs, movies, TV shows, etc., but the too broad, too powerful laws are irking many. There is talk of these laws having an adverse effect on free speech rights and the integrity/security of the technology that “powers” the Internet.

I want to know more!

http://metatalk.metafilter.com/21380/SOPAPIPA-blackout (Disclaimer: I’m a paying member of this website, but this post goes into a very detailed account of a SOPA-like request to shut down a site due to alleged copyright infringement.)

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/copyrights/index.html?smid=tw-nytimes (Once again, the Times has a great overview on a large topic, with multiple links and details.)

http://www.vice.com/read/pipa-supporters-copyright-violations (Some of the SOPA and PIPA legislators are in fact using copyrighted works without request/permission.)

http://theoatmeal.com/ (The animation takes a humorous look as to how SOPA might shut his website down. It might be crude, but the points are valid. Note: the animation might not be safe for work.)

New research from Outbrain, a content recommendation service and tool provider, shows that maybe we shouldn’t be trading in search engines for social media platforms. At least not just yet.

As reported by Search Engine Land, the report showed that out of 100 million visits to connected sites, 41 percent fell in the search category as the method they used to arrive to a site. In addition, the top three traffic sources were non-social media tools.

In another bit of research, Outbrain investigated the average number of page views per session – basically, once the user was there, did they click around the site? Visitors who arrived by a search mechanism clicked around more, while social media visitors tied for last place.

You can view Outbrain’s original report by clicking here.

So what does this mean?

I wouldn’t toss out search engines in favor of social media placement if you are looking to promote your site and your message. Simply put, folks are still using Google and the like to find the information, despite the current hype social media tools are garnering. As financial experts say, “diversify.” Social media might be growing, but there’s still a large audience of potential visitors who are going to want to use Google and co. to find you, and once they’re there, they want to stay.

Gather ’round, kids. Here’s some interesting things I’ve come across in the shortest month of the year.

Did Google catch Bing’s hand in the cookie jar?

Earlier this month, Google posted on their blog about what they charge Bing doing: surreptitiously taking Google search results and branding them as their own. Reading through their blog, it’s an interesting experiment as to how Google created nonsensical search results and let staffers search for those “loaded” terms. Within time, the fake search results (nonsense terms that lead to even crazier results) were finding their way to Bing. Google alleges that there looks to be some sort of connection of either Internet Explorer 8 or the Bing Toolbar that is taking Google search results and forwarding them to Bing for use.

Universities reaching out to social media for student retention

Colleges are looking at social media tools, including customized Facebook apps, to help stymie an up to 40 percent loss of students after the freshman year. NPR reports that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (yes, that Bill Gates) are investing $2 million in Inigral for the work.

Design commentary for single-page websites

You’ve seen them before – single page sites, sometimes called single-serving sites. This SitePoint article looks at some of the better designed ones, and what makes them “work.”

Got a question? There’s a site for that

The New York Times delves into a new batch of question-answer websites that are giving existing Q/A sites a challenge. They report that sites like Quora, Stack Exchange and VYou are working to dethrone other sites, like WikiAnswers and Yahoo Answers. As a disclaimer of sorts, I’ve used (and had much success) with Ask MetaFilter for crowd-sourced help.

It’s all about the content, baby

And now for something completely different. Two cartoons have caught my eye that delve into the difference in what site owners want vs. what the end-user/public wants. The Oatmeal beats up on restaurant websites, while XKCD thrashes college sites.

As we head into a new decade (or was that last year), make sure your website reflects the times.  If your site was designed more than two years ago, it’s probably due for a facelift.  Don’t be the website that is “so last decade”.  Not sure where to start?  Here are a few helpful tips from USNX to get 2011 started off right.

• Listen to customer and client feedback – even ask your friends to critique your website.  Once you’ve heard what they have to say, update your site accordingly.

• Stay on top of your updates!  Keep your content fresh.  Search engines do notice when updates are made.

• Look at website traffic stats to see where improvements need to be made and…yes, make those improvements!

• Pretend you are the customer.  Look at your site as if you are a potential customer.  Is the information you want or need easy to find?

• Cross link.  Cross link.  Cross link.  Is your website address on your brochure and business cards?  How about on your television/radio/print ads?  Does your site link to your Facebook and Twitter accounts?  Do you link to new blog posts from Facebook?  Did you post your television ad on YouTube and link to it from Facebook, Twitter, and your website?  You get the idea.

• Give people a reason to come back to your site.  Your business philosophy and location generally doesn’t change, so you may need to think outside the box.  Frequent blog posts, tips, contests, and links to interesting news articles or other blogs in your industry can all keep users returning.

We would love to hear what works for you!  Please feel free to post any helpful tips you may have below or join the chat on our Facebook page.

Happy new year from USNX!

‘I don’t want to be known for THAT!’

We’re a few days post-election, but this is still a good read about how political candidates and companies are paying SEO and online marketing companies to basically bury negative content. However, I don’t agree with the line that search optimization is a $2 billion industry; I’d think it’d be much higher than that.

What’s really needed in your email signature file?

I have to admit this article cracked me up on the train to New Orleans last month. I get a lot of emails, and the blessing (or curse) of that is that I get to look at a plethora of signature files. (You know, the phone-fax-email-address-blood type-website-Facebook-religious quote data folks automatically add to their email.) Check out the author’s example of how a James Bond villain would best use a signature file.

Three CMSs enter, one CMS leaves

Author Tim Stiffler-Dean reviews three of the most popular content management systems: WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. While there’s no clear-cut winner of “which is the best to use” Stiffler-Dean analyzes all three and provides a series of pros-cons.

Note: This section’s headline is an allusion to a quote from “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”

We can’t be serious all the time

Just in time for the holidays, I’ve been keeping an eye out for a smart phone to replace my brick of a phone. The big battle is the Apple iPhone vs. the Google-powered Android phones…with Microsoft way down the list. This FoxTrot cartoon from Bill Amend puts the smart phone wars in perspective: why not combine the two to cut down on gripes!

And just as I was writing this blog post, a Twitter buddy of mine showed me this cartoon: how iPhone, Android and Blackberry users see themselves and how they view others.